


Pardon my French

by Stellalana



Series: Insufferable [1]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: College, Everyone Is An Asshole, Except Mokuba he is an angel, F/M, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Post-Canon, Reader is a memelord, Reader-Insert, Slow Romance, i say fuck a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-05-02
Packaged: 2018-09-19 00:59:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 85,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9410543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stellalana/pseuds/Stellalana
Summary: You transferred to Domino University to start a new chapter, completely changing your major and your goals in life, and moving 7,000 miles away from your home in the States. When you ended up paired up for a group project with The World's Biggest Killjoy on the first day, you were dismayed to find that you found him equally intolerable as he was interesting, and resolved to make the best out of the next three months with the hotshot president of Kaiba Corp.





	1. The Great Seto Kaiba

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aki_The_Shiftless](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aki_The_Shiftless/gifts), [forlornTimekeeper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/forlornTimekeeper/gifts), [DragonSilk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonSilk/gifts), [LunarTwilight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunarTwilight/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because the world needs another fic where you sex up Seto Kaiba, obviously. First fic I'm posting on this site, and first fic I've written since I was like... 12? Hopefully I've improved since then!  
> I've already got about 20k words written on this thing this week, but it's all out of order, so I haven't decided on frequency of updates yet. Minimum of weekly (at least until finals kick my ass) but first few chapters may go up faster? Depending on how much I write this weekend I guess.  
> I know there's a ton of other Kaiba/reader writers out there, so I appreciate you giving mine a look. Anyway, enjoy!

Your first day in Domino City was exhausting, to say the least. Between the jet-lag from a fourteen hour flight, signing your lease for your apartment, checking in at the university, and directing the moving crew who were handling your small stock of furniture and boxes, you were ready to lay down and take a nap for the rest of the day. The nagging voice in the back of your head continued insisting you shouldn't sleep just yet in order to reset your internal clock, but god did the mattress look comfy.  


By the time all your belongings were safely in your new, tiny apartment, you realized that you had brought along too much stuff to fit inside the place, despite trying your best to pack maybe half your things. The apartment was much smaller than you had expected, though you should have known as much, moving to the heart of one of Japan's busiest and most expensive cities.

You were here for university, ready to enter your second year in a new major after leaving your previous studies in America behind you. Originally a programming major, you had decided over the course of your first year that despite excelling in the field, you just didn't want to write code for the rest of your life. You wanted a fresh start, a new outlook, so you transferred to Domino University at the end of your first year to study fashion design, and hopped on a plane, ready to start over.

Though, in hindsight, the reaction to move nearly 7,000 miles away just for a change may have been a bit extreme.

You decided to look up the nearest cafe on your phone, craving some food and coffee before tackling the task of unpacking all your belongings. It wasn't a far walk, and you enjoyed seeing the surroundings of your new home. You passed by quite a few delicious smelling restaurants and multiple skyscrapers and big businesses. You quickly found yourself in front of a small cafe and heard your stomach rumble in anticipation. Entering the cool cafe, you were hit by the strong smell of coffee and fresh bread. The second thing you noticed was that absolutely all the writing on the menu was in Japanese, and you had to take a moment to start translating your options in your head.

You took Japanese in high school and your first year of college, then studied it on your own in preparation for your big move toward the end of your previous semester, and although you were fluent in the language, it still took you a little time to read and understand it on paper. You were in the middle of translating the green tea latte with whipped cream when a voice broke you out of your thoughts.

"You're in the way."

You looked behind you quickly to see a tall, flashily dressed man with piercing blue eyes and a stern scowl painted on his face. Initially, you were a bit nervous to see the stranger, not just because he was naturally intimidating, but because you had absolutely no idea what business he had talking to you that way.

"Sorry, what?" You asked with an edge to your voice. You really did not react well to people being rude to you.

"Are you deaf too?" The man was utterly unfazed, "If you're not going to order something get out of my way."

You blinked in surprise, looking back to the counter of the cafe. When you had entered the cafe you did so at the back of the line, but in the midst of reading the menu you must not have noticed the line was completely gone and you were next. You bit the inside of your cheek, feeling a little embarrassed for holding up the line, but mostly annoyed with taking so long reading the menu. You were going to have trouble with school if you took this much time to process written Japanese. You regretted the annoyed tone you had used earlier, though the guy was being an asshole it was kind of your fault to begin with.

"Go ahead," you stepped aside and gestured for him to get in front of you. He walked past with arms crossed, no even looking at your face or offering a thank you. Just as quickly as you had felt bad for holding him up, those feelings disappeared. You ordered the first thing you read off the menu once it was your turn and resolved to take out your annoyance on unpacking your things. Organizing and decorating tended to take your mind off of things, and you were ready to forget that the first person you ran into in Domino was a sourpuss. You were going to turn this day around and make your apartment look absolutely killer.

And then do some more studying on the language in preparation for the start of classes in two days.

The first day of the semester came faster than you would have imagined, and you started off your day with calculus II. Most people would probably be pretty adverse to math, especially at 8am, but you were actually excited for the course. You had enjoyed calculus in high school, at least. Despite leaving programming behind you, you decided to minor in mathematics-- partially because most of your math classes had already transferred from your previous college so you only needed a few more-- and partially because you knew it was useful for pattern making in fashion design. Plus, it was a good way to practice your numbers in Japanese.

You entered from the back of the classroom a few minutes before the start of class, noticing the room was already mostly full. It was your philosophy that showing up to class early was a waste of time, and although it may have been a mark of a good student, you didn't really consider yourself one. Sure, you were naturally smart, a hard worker, and professors generally really liked you, but you were snarky and didn't have much respect for authority.

You set your bag down at the closest seat to you, in the back of the room near the windows, next to a young man typing quickly on a fancy looking laptop. His long, slender fingers move rapidly across the keyboard, and you glanced over to see him typing up code in C++. You smirked to yourself, impressed with how fast he flew through the lines of code, the mark of a true programmer. As you took your seat, you gave the boy a quick once-over. Dressed in a slim black turtleneck and matching skinny pants, topped off with a gaudy blue trench coat, your eyes wandered up to his brown hair styled into what could only be described as a tasteful mullet (which, up til now, you would have considered the world's biggest oxymoron). Honestly, a mullet had no business looking that fucking good on anyone. Then you noticed his eyes, a beautiful deep blue, and you got a sense of deja vu. But you had barely met anyone in Japan so far other than...

The boy seemed to realize you had taken a seat next to him, and stopped typing to turn his head to look at you. You nodded at him as a greeting, but didn't want to say anything just in case he was actually the asshole you thought he was. You quickly turned away from him, reached into your bag and pulled out your textbook and notebook just as the professor walked into the room. You heard the rapid typing of keys resume almost instantly next to you, and wondered to yourself what project the boy was working on. You had gotten a pretty quick glance at what he was writing, but it suggested a pretty huge scale.

Your thoughts were interrupted by the professor introducing herself, and declaring the class would take part in an "icebreaker"-- the typical kind all college professors use on the first day of class. Introduce yourself, where you're from, and an "interesting fact" about yourself. Each time one of these icebreakers came up, you contemplated making up a ridiculous fact about yourself just to see how people would react, like 'I'm a filthy fujoshi' or 'I'm a registered arsonist' but you were too much of a pussy to commit to that so you usually settled on 'I have two cats and they're really cute.'

You didn't really pay attention to any of the other students' intros, though you noticed a particularly annoying sophomore girl toward the front of the classroom that spent an inordinate amount of time on her interesting fact, and devolved into just talking about herself for a good minute before realizing no one actually cared about her hobbies at all. Eventually it came around to you-- actually it came around to the boy next to you first but when the professor asked him to introduce himself he replied with, "What a waste of my time," and ignored her.

Well you had to give the guy props, he kind of said what everyone was thinking, but it was still pretty rude. And it basically confirmed your suspicions that this was the man you had run into at the little cafe your first day in Domino. You stood up and introduced yourself, stating that you were a transfer student from America, and that you had two cats. You kept it short and simple, ready to get into the syllabus and move on to your next class of the day.

As you sat down, you noticed the boy had stopped typing briefly and glanced over at you. "You're from America." It wasn't a question, it was as if he was confirming what he had heard during your self-introduction.

"Uh, yeah." You started describing your hometown back in the States, but quickly cut yourself off when the boy turned away from you and continued coding. You pursed your lips, finding yourself a mix of annoyed by his attitude but interested in talking to him. Syllabus day was always pretty boring, since most professors had about the same policy, and you'd much rather hear about what he was coding for, despite not wanting to study programming anymore, you still found the field interesting and liked talking about it occasionally. "Have you been to America?"

He scoffed, as if the question was beneath him answering, "Of course I have, I do business there frequently."

"Oh, for game design?" 

He stopped typing again and turned to you, obviously bewildered that you knew what he was doing on his laptop, though he did a good job hiding the surprise from his face.

"It looked like you were coding an AI design, though I only got a quick glance at the code so I could be wrong, but I assumed it was for a game," You said. His brow furrowed a little as he studied you, as if he were appraising something in a shop before he purchased it, which felt both a little weird and a little satisfying. "I used to be a programming major," You clarified.

"Used to be," he stated as if he was unhappy with the past tense of your studies.

"Yeah, back in America. I'm here to study fashion design."

That elicited another scoff from him, and he turned his attention back to his laptop screen, "What a waste. You could have actually been successful and you're giving it up for something so stupid."

You probably should have felt offended at that, but instead you chuckled in response, "Yeah, you're probably right. But job security's overrated, amirite?"

Obviously he was unsatisfied with your reply, because his eyes narrowed at the screen and he was clearly ready to ignore you for the rest of class-- maybe forever, you wouldn't put it past him.

Going over the syllabus flew by pretty quickly, and the professor started to wrap up the class by announcing that the majority of the grade for the class would be based on a group project-- which you were about ready to riot over because you loathed group projects, and a math course seemed a bad environment for a big group project anyway-- and that you'd all need to find a partner to work with. You glanced over at the boy next to you to find he was deep in the midst of coding and probably wasn't listening at all, and you didn't really want to work with him anyway if he was going to act like a prince the entire semester. You looked around the room to find that most of the students just paired up with others at their table and the only students left after about a minute were yourself, the guy next to you, and the girl you recognized from her long obnoxious icebreaker speech.

_Fantastic._

The professor went around the room asking who each student had paired up with. and when she got to you, you quickly pointed to the boy next to you. He looked up from his screen to notice her writing both your names on the board along with your assigned problem for the final. The boy shot you a hot glare, "What the hell is going on?"

"If you were paying attention you'd know that we're partners for the group final." You replied over-dramatically.

"No." he responded curtly, "I don't work with people beneath me."

"Oh fuck off," you were not in the mood for this holier than thou attitude, "I don't work with people who are stuck-up assholes," you made a small gesture toward the girl who found herself without a group, "but I'm not getting put into a group of three with that blabbermouth, and I don't think you want to be either." By this time, the girl had been placed into another group and you felt a bit safer. The two of you watched as she made her way over to her new group, and immediately started talking.

The boy clicked his tongue in annoyance, his face twisted into a scowl as you turned to him with a smug smile. You had won. Well, in a sense you had also lost because you were going to spend a good portion of your semester with the worlds biggest grouch, because the projects were looking to be pretty hard and lengthy. On the bright side, at least he was easy on the eyes.

"I still don't know your name," you observed.

He sighed, obviously in a worse mood than he started in-- which you were surprised to see was possible-- as he leveled his piercing gaze at you, "Seto Kaiba." You had never heard anyone introduce themselves with such pride, but the name meant nothing to you so you assumed it was just his attitude.

You nodded, "Okay Seto, do you prefer contact by email or phone?"

"Phone," he replied quickly, though a look of regret flashed briefly across his face, as if he had been thrown off guard and answered without thinking about it. You waited for him to change his mind to email, but instead he pulled out his phone begrudgingly, as if he'd rather deal with you having his number than admit he had made a mistake. You wondered what had gone through his mind to throw him off?

Maybe it was the fact that you had called him Seto, really without thinking about it, since you were so used to calling people by their first name back in America. You thought on apologizing and instead calling him Kaiba to be polite, but discovered you enjoyed seeing him unprepared to deal with you using his first name. It was kind of a power trip-- a mean power trip, sure, but a fun one.

The two of you exchanged numbers and you went up to the front of the room to collect the materials and problems for your project, giving half to him and putting your half in your binder. You checked your phone and discovered you had another half hour before your next class, so you thought you'd walk to the nearest cafe and pick up a tea before then. You slung your bag over your shoulder and waved to 'the great Seto Kaiba', which was met unsurprisingly with a glare, and you headed out of the classroom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PS-- I came up with the title because the mug I'm drinking out of right now says "Pardon my French" and somehow I feel like it fits both characters, since they're kinda assholes. Also lots of French cuisine in this story. It's like a joke that works on multiple levels but all the levels are shitty, so overall it's kind of a bad meme. I give it like a 6/10, would dank again but maybe not in public.
> 
> PPS-- Dedicating this one to four writers that really held my interest with their Kaiba fics (finished and ongoing). I have a bunch of different Kaiba/reader fic ideas bouncing around in my head but they really inspired me to post this one. So if you like what you're reading so far, thank them not me! ;D


	2. Descriptive Variables

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm thinking updating Tuesdays and Saturdays is a good schedule. At least until I catch up to myself and have to slow down if necessary. So until further notice, that's what we're gonna do! :D

After finishing your first day of classes you were glad your basic apparel construction classes you took as electives at your previous university had transferred. They would be good review, and it would have been helpful to learn the Japanese terms for certain stitches and finishes so you'd know them for higher level courses, but your grandmother had taught you the basics of sewing while you were growing up so you were excited to move on to the higher level construction courses. After going over the syllabus for Draping and Functional Fashion Design, you were more than ready to dive into making some killer outfits. 

By the end of the day you were starving, but not at all interested in anything you had at home. You stared into the refrigerator, searching for anything you would want to eat, but to no avail. You didn't know yet what restaurants around the city were any good, and didn't want to risk it on a yelp review at the end of your first day of university, preferring to end on a high note. You contemplated ordering something you'd never heard of before but thought it too risky, until finally your mind settled on an idea. A probably stupid idea.

You pulled out your phone and searched your contacts for Seto Kaiba's number, chuckling to yourself as you imagined his face as you interrupted whatever 'important' work he was in the middle of, typing out _Yo, what's good to eat around here?_ and hitting send. You decided to crack out your laptop and browse Facebook whilst waiting for a response, scrolling through to see what everyone back in the States was doing. School hadn't started back up yet, and most of your feed was either covered in the leftover vacation photos from the summer, or people you knew finding jobs and internships and getting ready to start the new semester. 

About halfway through one of your cousin's photo albums from her vacation in Peru, you got an idea. You wondered if you could find Seto's profile on Facebook-- if he even had one-- and stalk around his feed. Maybe see if he had any friends, hobbies, where he worked. It would be a good time waster. You typed his name into the search bar, and it brought you to the brief description of a "person of interest" with a link to a Wikipedia page. Curious, and confused, you clicked on the link and watched as the lengthy article appeared in front of you. At first you figured you must have had the wrong person, but then you looked over at the picture on the article, and without a doubt, those blue eyes belonged to the the very same guy you had paired up for the semester with. 

"What the fuck..." you mumbled to yourself, scanning the page to learn that the smug, arrogant, and devilishly handsome man you were now waiting for a response from was none other than the CEO of a multi-billion dollar gaming company. You were startled out of your thoughts by the vibration of your phone on the hard counter-top, and picked it up to see the young president had actually bothered to reply to you. You felt just a little twinge of honor, but ultimately hoped you could play this off like you had known who he was all along and you were just unfazed by him. It would probably seem cooler that way.

_You're seriously bothering me with such a ridiculous question?_

You sighed. You had really expected a response like that but you were still disappointed that you were no closer to finding a good restaurant. 

_Well yeah, I'm hungry._

_So why are you asking me?_

You didn't really want to admit that he was the only person you actually knew in the city, but didn't have a better answer, really. _I don't have anyone else to ask._ Then, for good measure, _And I figure you'd probably know good food._

You had to wait a few minutes for a reply, wondering if he was already done with entertaining your request. You also had a sneaking suspicion that if he even did answer you, it would probably be with some classy five-star restaurant you'd never be able to get into, now that you knew who he was.

To your surprise, he eventually replied with the name of a French restaurant, and when you looked it up it was actually within your price range (albeit on the higher end) and the reviews were good. You felt a little bad for expecting a snarky response. 

_It looks nice, thank you!_ Then as an afterthought, you thought to tease him with a "friendly" _Maybe I should bring you some, too._

_Don't be stupid, I have a secretary for that, and I eat better than that place._

You didn't feel so bad anymore. 

 

You walked over to the French restaurant Seto had recommended, all the while browsing through all the available information you could find on him. Apparently, he had taken over the company when he was just fourteen, turning its focus from military production to a gaming corporation practically overnight. It seemed like the company had only recently started producing games and accessories outside the Duel Monsters card game, which was probably why you saw him furiously coding throughout class. He also graduated high school top of his class, and got into Domino University easily. You wondered why he settled on DU, though. Not that the school was bad, actually it was a pretty high-ranking school that was pretty hard to get into (you had only gotten in because you transferred in with a pretty high GPA) but it wasn't known for programming by any stretch. Actually, now that you thought about it, you weren't positive Seto was even majoring in programming, and maybe he was just studying at the school because it was close to his company. 

The more you read about him the less you felt like you knew about him; really, his bio just put more questions in your head. Why was he attending university if he was already the CEO of a company? It's not like he needed the education for job security or anything, did he just really like learning that much? Though in your calculus class today he hadn't paid attention at all. Sure, it was syllabus day so no learning actually happened, but he didn't really rub you as the kind of person to take notes in class over doing actual work. 

Then there was the question of why did he take over the company at such a young age? You read that he was the intended heir of the company anyway, and it seemed insane to you that he would be ambitious enough to run Kaiba Corp. in high school. Not to mention, switching the focus of the company to gaming, which you admired more than anything else. Your dad had been in the military when you were pretty young, so of course you supported a country's right to defend itself, but you had admittedly always thought war to be unnecessary. You much preferred the company's new focus of bringing happiness over profiting on the misfortune of others. Maybe you were just too idealistic.

The food at the restaurant ended up being pretty good, and you put a reminder in the back of your mind to thank Seto for the recommendation when you saw him on Thursday for class. You headed back home, continuing your quest for digging up info on him, feeling a little stalkerish, but it was honestly really interesting learning about him. You doubted he would ever tell you any of this information, and you didn't really want to ask him about any of it. Plus, it was kind of like reading up on a celebrity. Well, it was actually the definition of reading up on a celebrity. 

Through google images you found quite a few photos of Seto, in lots of glitzy trench coats with gravity-defying billowing hems and huge shoulder-pads. You wouldn't exactly say any of them were your design aesthetic, but you actually thought a few of them looked pretty cool. Though you recognized you had a tendency to design some pretty out-of-the-ordinary fashion, not to mention he was about the only person in the world who could pull some of these outfits off. The guy had the build of a model, which normally you didn't find as a compliment, since fashion models tended to look a little out-of-place compared to normal people. But Seto was quite good-looking, and you envied his genetics. He was tall, slim, had legs as long as the Nile. He was absolutely your type. You also found a few photos of him in some pretty standard, but well-tailored suits, and discovered that when it wasn't hidden behind a billowy coat, he had a fine ass. 

As you entered your apartment and were greeted by your two, darling cats welcoming you home, you slightly regretted digging up all that info on Seto, especially staring at photos of him for so long, because now you could not stop thinking about him. About twenty-- okay maybe thirty--percent of your thoughts were admiration of his ambition and talent, and wanting to actually get to know him past his cocky attitude and constant scowling. The rest was purely getting him out of those clothes and into your bedroom.

Normally, you wouldn't consider yourself a "sexual deviant", but you hadn't been laid, well, ever, hadn't had a proper boyfriend (or girlfriend for that matter) in who knew how long. So as the stress from moving to a new country and starting the semester at a new school in a new major piled up, your newfound sexual frustration was already bubbling over, and fixating on, quite literally, the first person you laid eyes on. 

You plopped yourself down on your tiny couch that your parents had owned since before you were born, and Dandelion-- your older, fatter cat-- promptly snuggled into your lap to demand attention. You stroked his soft brown fur and scratched under his chin, eliciting purrs about as loud as jet-skis. "Sweet boy, does it make me a pervert if I think about boning a man I just met a few days ago?"

Ciri, your smaller white kitty, climbed up on top of the couch and let out a loud mewl in response.

"Well nobody fucking asked you." You narrowed your eyebrows at her and playfully booped her on the nose. She nuzzled at your hand, and you spent the next twenty or so minutes spoiling your furry babies before it started getting late.

You needed a cold shower to shake off these impure thoughts, and a good night's sleep. 

 

Thursday came quicker than you expected, and you were comfortable enough in your new sleep schedule that you were very awake by the time calculus rolled around. You slid into the seat next to Seto, glancing over his shoulder to see that he had moved on to a completely different section of code from Monday. It looked like object coding for a couple different weapons. "Your code is so neat." You remarked, "And you use such descriptive variable names."

He stopped mid-code to turn to you, an emotionless mask set perfectly on his face. You wiggled your eyebrows at him in response, eliciting a scoff from him. "Do you need something? Or are you just here to bother me?"

"Actually, yeah," you began, "I need to thank you for recommending that restaurant to me! It was really good."

He hummed in response, which you took to mean he heard you, but thought a 'your welcome' was unnecessary. His fingers returned to dancing across the keys, his attention sucked back into the program he was writing. Class didn't start for another few minutes, but you let Seto be, allowing him to focus on his code. You were equally silent throughout class, and at one point when the professor was reviewing materials you were already familiar with, you closed your eyes and focused on the rhythmic sound of Seto's fingers hitting the keyboard. It was really a relaxing sound, a programmer's coding, especially when they were deep in the flow and could just continue to write, without pause, at a steady pace. At your previous college, you would frequently code in the programming labs, despite having all the software on your own computer, just so you could relax to the sounds of the other programmers typing. Compared to most of the other programming students you had met in university, Seto's pace was especially fast, like he'd had a lot of practice typing, and there was no break whatsoever in-between one key and the next. It had the same effect as heavy rain on a window pane, easy to lose yourself in the flow of sound.

By the time you opened your eyes, class was just finishing for the day. You must have been relaxing to his rhythm for a good hour. You felt refreshed, but found your mind beginning to wander back to questions about Seto. What he liked, what hobbies he had, what foods he loved, really anything that popped into your head seemed like a good question to ask, though you were almost positive he wouldn't answer any of them.

The classroom had cleared out, and you knew there wasn't another class in the room for the next two hours, so you found yourself alone with Seto, who seemed like he was just realizing class was over. His fingers hovered over the keys as he scanned the room, his eyes resting on you in a glare. When you said nothing to him for a moment, he returned his focus to his laptop once more.

Thinking back to his age on the wikipedia page you had perused on him, Seto would also be a sophomore-- or a second year as every non-American called them-- but the code he was currently working on looked pretty advanced for a programming major his age. "Are you majoring in comp sci? Or programming?" You broke the silence, propping both elbows up on the table and balancing your chin in your hands. 

"Why would I waste my time studying something I'm already better at than all the professors here?" Every time you asked Seto a question, it seemed like his 'you're asking something stupid' tone got more and more extreme. Geeze, you were just trying to get to know the guy.

"Alright then Mr. Genius, what is your major?" 

He sighed, pulling his fingers away from his laptop once again, turning his body to face you, "Is there a reason you insist on distracting me from my work? I have more important things to do than entertain you."

"The reason is to befriend you, I thought that was fairly obvious," you deadpanned, "you know if you answered my questions with actual answers our conversations would end much faster and you could get back to work. So, major?"

You heard him make a soft groan in the back of his throat, his icy blue stare was almost enough to make you rethink your plans to get on his good side, but you were determined. Seto was the only person who had so much as paid you a glance in Domino City thus far, and despite his piss-poor attitude, you found him fascinating. You admired his ambition and intelligence, and when he wasn't hurling insults your way (or sometimes when he was hurling insults your way) you found his snarky attitude pretty funny. Plus it was fun to mess with him. 

"Mathematics." He finally, begrudgingly stated. 

"Really? I somehow expected a more focused field."

"The subject is practical, and broad enough that I can apply it to most any aspect of my business." 

You hummed in thought, studying his face, which was still riddled with annoyance. "That's smart." You finally said, and watched as his features softened ever-so-slightly. 

"Of course it is." He replied matter-of-factly, crossing his slender arms across his chest and crossing one long leg over the other. His pride was clearly showing. 

You smirked up at him. He responded well to compliments and observations that fed his ego, and you were excited to find it was surprisingly easy to read him. You turned yourself around in your chair so you were straddling the backrest, lazily draping your arms over the top, and resting your chin in the space between them. You scooted yourself a little closer to him so you could get a better view of his code, and noticed him re-adjust himself in his own chair, uncomfortable by your sudden closeness. 

Well, you could hardly say the two of you were really "close" right now, you weren't even touching, and there was still about half a chair's worth of space between you. But you recognized that the American idea of close and the Japanese idea of close were vastly different, and while the proximity meant absolutely nothing to you as a Westerner, you could understand his discomfort. You watched him for a moment, ready to scoot further away if he continued to look as tense as he did, but once he realized you had no intention of getting any closer, his shoulders relaxed and he returned his attention to his code. 

It looked like he was still working on object coding for some weapons, and you again remarked to yourself on the neatness of his work. Although you had been good at coding, you had a nasty habit of using non-descript variable names that other programmers basically thought were disgusting. For example, instead of using the term "gun" for a gun, you might use "x", and then have a key at the top to explain what each variable was. The issue was then that in lengthier code, you might have j-z as your variables, which people couldn't remember, and they'd have to go to the key to find the variable, then try to return to their place in your code. You recognized it was an awful way to program, and toward the end of your second semester you had tried getting into the habit of using actual names for your variables, but by that time you were already being eaten at the idea that you didn't even want to be a programming major anymore. 

You had another two hours or so before your next class, so it was nice to relax and watch Seto code before then. You were curious though why he was staying in the room with you, you assumed he would be more comfortable working at his home or his office, "Why are you working in here?"

"It's quiet. No one bothers me here," he paused, "Usually nobody. Seems a certain someone's insistent on following me around like a lost puppy." He didn't sound nearly as serious as he had before, and you wondered if he was actually teasing you. 

"I hate dogs." You scrunched your nose at him. 

"Oh?" At this point, Seto was able to code while the two of you spoke, though you recognized his typing speed had slowed a little. You were glad that you were becoming less of a distraction.

"Yeah, I got attacked by a German Shepherd when I was a kid. So I'm kinda terrified of big dogs. And I guess small dogs when they bark a lot, but mostly I just think they're obnoxious." You ruminated.

The two of you settled back into a comfortable silence, and Seto's pace picked back up. You were starting to like him the more you talked to him, since you found it easy to brush off his negativity. The fact that he was the only person you had really talked to in the country probably also made it much easier for you to forgive his attitude. After about twenty minutes of watching him code, you were beginning to grow a bit tired, and decided to work on some fashion sketches for the next hour and a half or so before draping began. You scooted back to your own area of the table, and the two of you worked quietly until your class was about to begin, and you both packed up and went your separate ways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I basically wrote this entire chapter listening to swing. Y'all like swing? I love swing.  
> I wonder if Kaiba likes swing. The genre's probably too fun for him....
> 
> Hope you guys are enjoying so far! This was originally two chapters, but I thought they were too short on their own so I combined them with a timeskip instead.  
> As always, comments/critiques are always welcome!


	3. Five Star

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who's ready for 3k words of lunch with Kaiba? Because that's basically what this chapter is~ 
> 
> Fun fact: My friend Jeffrey has been reading these chapters out loud to a bunch of us on voice chat, and it's been really hilarious some of the voices he makes. Highly recommend getting yourself a Jeffrey to read this to you.

You had been awoken on your day off of classes by your phone's text tone at six in the morning, and although it wasn't much earlier than you usually woke up, it was in the middle of your REM cycle and you knew you'd be tired the rest of the day. You reached over and pulled your phone down under the warm blankets, and expected the text to come from one of your friends or family in America who didn't know the timezone difference, but were surprised to see that the text came from Seto. 

_I finish meetings at 11 am. We're going to start work on the project._

You didn't really appreciate the fact that he was practically ordering you around, but you were too tired to argue with his tone. 

_Where do you want to meet up?_

_My office._

You groaned, absolutely not excited to put on something appropriate for a business setting on your day off. 

_Can we at least get lunch?_

_I don't have time to entertain your stupid whims._

_But I'm so much easier to work with when I'm in an agreeable mood~_

You had to wait quite a while for a reply, and eventually put your phone back on the table and were starting to fall asleep when your phone buzzed again. 

_Fine._

You considered that one a victory and celebrated by going the fuck back to sleep. It was a short lived celebration, as your alarm rang out at 7 and though you really wanted to sleep in, you had an obsession with keeping your sleep schedule consistent and on REM cycles, so you managed to will yourself out of bed and made yourself some breakfast. 

Your hair and makeup were done by ten, and you searched your closet for anything you could wear to Kaiba Corp. You didn't own any blazers-- you hated blazers, blazers were where fashion went to die-- but you did have a pretty cute (and tastefully sexy) black pencil skirt with a killer kick split, and a pale pink chiffon button-up that made your eyes pop. Plus, it matched your nails, which was always a bonus. You decided on a pair of black heels-- tall, but not your tallest-- because you didn't want Seto towering over you quite so much. You were wearing some smaller heels during your first run-in with him, and you didn't appreciate him being an entire foot over you. Nine inches, though, not too bad. 

 

When you entered the front doors of Kaiba Corp. you looked around at all the workers scampering around and, depending on who you looked at, you either felt slightly overdressed or severely under-dressed. You made your way to the front desk, gave the woman working your name, and said Seto had asked to see you. 

She seemed put-off by the combination of you using his first name and your lack of honorifics, but did her best to look polite, "Give me just a moment," she gestured over to some chairs next to the counter, "You can wait over there."

While you waited for her to check you in, you browsed your Instagram, and briefly considered taking a selfie in the lobby of the building. You know, just to say you had already been invited in by the CEO himself, and you'd only been in town for two weeks. By the time you decided to actually take the photo though, the woman working the front desk called you back over and handed you a plastic ID card with the word visitor plastered on the front. It even had your picture on it from your driver's licence. You wondered where they had gotten it. She directed you the elevators at the end of the lobby, which were crowded with employees by the looks of things. "Mister Kaiba's office is on the top floor, he's finishing up a meeting right now, you can check in with his secretary when you get up there."

You thanked her and started towards the elevators, not exactly excited to get into the cramped environment. But as you got up higher and higher, more and more people got out, until you were all alone reaching the top floor. As you waited for the elevator to ascend, you glanced over the visitor ID and noticed the expiration date to be the due date of your calculus project. Once on the top floor, you exited the elevator, heading over to the secretary whom you assumed was Seto's personal assistant of sorts since she had her own office space just outside two huge, ornate double doors that could only lead to the CEO's office. You checked in with her, and were instructed to take a seat until Seto was ready to see you.

Again, you found yourself contemplating taking that selfie just to prove you were here. There was a wall of windows on either side of you, and it would make for a great photo, but the secretary was glancing up at you every so often-- clearly thinking you didn't belong here-- and you didn't want to embarrass yourself. So, you instead took to scrolling through twitter until His Royal Highness exited his office with two other men in suits, both looking to be in their forties. You didn't recognize either of them, but your initial impression was that they seemed sleazy, you didn't like them at all. You watched them enter the elevator, then turned your attention to Seto as he waved you into his office. You rushed yourself out of the waiting room chair and quickly followed him inside, cursing his long strides. 

"Who were those guys?" You asked.

"Mister Akira and Mister Takano, president and vice president of a company that want to invest in our virtual reality development." Seto replied. He sounded stressed, more stressed than usual.

"I don't like them," you remarked bluntly, looking up to meet his surprised gaze, "Sorry, I just mean they gave off this air that rubbed me the wrong way, I guess." 

He made a humming noise in the back of his throat, as if he was actually considering what you had observed. "Seems like you read people well." 

Was he actually complimenting you? Well, it sounded more like a simple perception of you, but it was probably as close to a compliment as you were going to get from him. You were almost instantly in a good mood from that. "So where are we going for lunch?" You chirped.

Seto sat in the big leather chair at his desk, and logged onto his computer, barely acknowledging your question. You sat down in one of the chairs in front of his desk, patiently waiting for a response. Eventually, after he finished what seemed like checking his emails, he turned his attention back to you, "Lunch?"

"Yes, lunch. You said we could go to lunch before we started on the project, yeah?"

He sighed, folding his hands together and resting his chin atop them, keeping his blue eyes on you the entire time. He scanned your face, then up and down your body, before finally settling on holding eye contact. A smirk tugged at his lips as if he had gotten an idea, "You're a bit under-dressed for a lunch date with me."

You met his smirk with a cheeky grin, "You're a bit overdressed for a lunch date with me."

His smirk faded as quickly as it had appeared, and he got out of his chair and headed toward what looked like a private elevator. When you didn't follow him he folded his arms over his chest and gestured for you to come with a tilt of his head, looking annoyed. You were really enjoying learning how much of an open book Seto was, every emotion he had reflected on his face, however briefly, even if he didn't vocalize it. You quickly followed him over to the elevator, out of the building, and over to a limo parked at the curb. 

You whistled, "Nice wheels." 

He raised an eyebrow at you, "Please, like you know anything about cars."

You sarcastically gasped at him, "Seto, I'm appalled. Of course I know about cars. That," you gestured toward the limousine dramatically, "Is a limo." 

He scoffed at you as he turned away quickly and got into the car, clearly not appreciating your joke. And you had worked oh so hard on it too! The art of humor was clearly lost on this man. You wondered if he secretly loved memes, if he had a secret folder full of them that he'd dare not let anyone seen. The thought brought a devilish grin to your face as you joined him in the back of the limo.

"Why are you smiling like an idiot?"

You turned your head, feeling your grin grow wider, "Because I'm happy. Honestly for someone who hates stupid questions you ask some pretty dumb ones, Seto," you teased. 

The limo ride was entirely enveloped in a silence between the two of you. You glanced every so often at Seto, who spent the entire time staring out the opposite window and tapping his finger on the seat. The sun peeked through the windows and sparkled on the strands of his caramel brown hair, highlighting the blue eye you could see from this angle and glistening off his flawless skin. God, he was good looking. 

When you arrived, the two of you exited the limo and walked up to the front doors of a clearly expensive French restaurant. So far, you were getting quite the hint that Seto liked French cuisine. The moment you entered the restaurant and looked around the place, you were painfully aware that you did not belong here. You had never considered yourself poor, actually you were from a happily upper-middle class family, you dressed well, and you held yourself proudly to cover for your self-loathing. But the people in this restaurant were on a whole other level of snobbery. You and Seto were led over to a table toward the back of the restaurant, and you could just tell from the way he watched you that he was enjoying seeing you out of place. You kept your eyes darting around making sure no one was staring at you.

Your waitress came quickly and placed two menus in front of you, then began talking to Seto about the wine specials of the day. All the terms she used were pretty alien to you, all you really knew was that you liked fruity wine, but you barely drank the stuff, preferring cocktails in your limited experience with alcohol. Seto selected a glass of wine from the list, and they both turned their attention to you, Seto with a smirk growing on his perfect lips. 

You frowned at the drink menu, ready to choose the cheapest option, when you discovered that not only was the cheapest option over thirty dollars for a glass, but that the entire drink menu was in fucking French. Your eyes darted between the waitress and the menu, looking for an out, before settling on "I'll just have water." She flashed a judgmental look at you, before politely exiting to get your drinks. 

You pursed your lips in disappointment. Truth be told, you didn't even like water. You didn't drink water. You'd even go as far as to say you hated water on its own. But you could not afford to drop thirty bucks on some mystery wine, and you couldn't even tell if they had a cocktail menu. Plus, it wasn't even noon, wasn't that too early for cocktails? You weren't really a stickler for the 'drinking rules' if there were such a thing, but you weren't a regular Kathie Lee by any stretch. 

You eventually turned your attention to the menu that you assumed was for food, based on its larger size. To your dismay, it was also entirely in French. You prided yourself on knowing three languages, but French was absolutely not one of them. You glanced up at from your menu to eye Seto as an expensive glass of wine was poured for him. He looked back at you, even more smug than usual. That jerk. 

You tried thinking quickly for a way out of this situation without making a fool of yourself. You could order the cheapest thing off the menu, since you didn't exactly want to pay a hundred dollars for a steak, but you were notoriously picky, and feared ordering something blindly and not eating any of it. Then you had a brilliant idea. You had downloaded an app that was supposedly able to translate different languages if you took a photo of the text a while before coming to Japan. You figured it would be a good time to test it out. 

You stealthily took your phone out from your wallet and snapped a photo of the menu, then waited for the app to translate the text, praying for accuracy. 

"What are you doing?" Seto asked.

"Trying to figure out what _foie gras_ is." There was no point in denying your intentions. Seto already knew you were completely unable to read anything on the menu, and being honest was the best course of action in not making a fool of yourself. 

Seto merely let out a self-satisfied half-chuckle, obviously pleased with taking you to the restaurant and watching your confidence crumble. It's not like you were having a bad time, actually it was kind of an adventure, and watching Seto enjoy himself, even if he thought it was at your expense, was pretty fun. You returned your attention to your phone to see if it had had any success in translating the menu. 

"Well?"

"I mean," you cringed at the poor translation, "I think one of these is steak and mushrooms, but I can't be sure considering this app thinks another dish is 'cat and broccoli with a... sauce'."

"What kind of sauce?"

"It just says sauce." You furrowed your eyebrows and looked up at him to see his smirk had grown to about the widest point you'd ever seen on him. From being exposed to Seto as little as you were this past week and change, you hadn't ever expected to see him this amused. It warmed your icy heart to see the smug asshole so pleased. 

You sighed, setting your phone aside and holding eye contact with him, "What do I have to do to get you to tell me if this--" you pointed to one of the cheaper items on the menu, "Is actually steak and mushrooms?"

He hummed in response, his sapphire blue eyes traveling your face and upper body, again like he was evaluating your worth. Though the act should have made you uncomfortable, you were pretty used to it by now, and found a small part of yourself hoping he was pleased with you, that you were up to his standards. "I suppose I could tell you. Perhaps." He was teasing you, the bastard.

You kept your gaze leveled with his, waiting for him to just tell you if the damn thing was something you'd actually eat. The waitress came back shortly thereafter, and Seto ordered for himself and you without asking your input. You weren't even sure what he ordered, but you prayed it wasn't too expensive, for your bank account's sake. 

"What did you order?" You asked as soon as the waitress had taken her leave. 

"Guess you'll have to wait and see." He took a sip of his wine.

You huffed. Waiting was not one of your strong suits, you were notably impatient, and though you were almost positive he had ordered the steak and mushrooms for you, you still felt a thorn of anxiety poking at you. "Fine fine." You mumbled in defeat, "So how do you want to split the work up for the project?" 

Seto folded his hands on the table in front of him calmly, "I've created a schedule we will be following to ensure we won't be cramming any work in last-minute. We will be working together on most portions of the assignment, and anything you do on your own you will email to me to check for accuracy."

"Am I checking the stuff you do too, for accuracy?"

He rolled his eyes at you, "Of course not, I don't need you to check my work." 

You raised an eyebrow in response, about to reply with a witty quip, when the waitress returned with your lunch. She placed an expensive looking dish in front of you, which you were delighted to find was, in fact, steak and mushrooms. You glanced over to his plate to see an equally fancy dish in front of him, that looked to be mushrooms, and steak, with... more steak on top? 

"What's that?"

"A filet mignon with foie gras." He replied.

"Soooooo steak and mushrooms?" You asked with a playful grin.

He sighed, picking up his silverware with an air of poise you hadn't seen from him before. You immediately felt out of place in this restaurant once again. "I suppose if you want to sound uncultured. More accurately, it's steak, duck liver, and mushrooms." 

Duck liver sounded a little much for your palette, though your only experience with liver had been when you were young and didn't look nearly that fancy. You picked up your own knife and fork and did your best to cut the food into small bites so you didn't look like a glutton, "Good thing I'm uncultured then." You said, widening your grin to mask your insecurity. At least admitting your unrefined nature meant he could tease you less about your lack of tact later on. 

The rest of lunch passed quietly, when the check came you made an attempt to take out your card to pay for your meal, but Seto passed his credit card to the waitress without even so much as a glance at the bill. You pursed your lips at him and he merely shrugged you off.

"You can't afford it anyway." 

"I could have paid for mine," you protested, reaching for your water to take a sip.

"Your meal was about eighty dollars US."

You coughed in surprise, thankfully before the drink had reached your lips, " _Holy shit_ ," you choked out in English. You placed the glass of water back on the table before he decided to spring any other surprises on you. "That's a lot of money." You finally managed.

"Please," he discounted, "I am the president of a multi-billion dollar company. Lunch is nothing." 

"Oh how I envy you," you deadpanned as he signed for the check and got up to leave. You slipped your phone back into your wallet and slid out of your chair to follow him, feeling a little uncomfortable, but ultimately glad to be out of the restaurant. Despite it all, you had enjoyed yourself, plus you had gotten to try some food you'd never be able to afford in your lifetime. Once the two of you were back in the limo, you turned to look at him. "Hey, uh. Thank you for lunch." 

He made a small 'humph' in response and you figured that was as good as you were going to get. You briefly wondered why the great Seto Kaiba had even put up with bringing you to lunch in the first place. Sure watching you flounder around was probably fun, but the guy had barely known you for two weeks and agreed to your request for lunch almost instantly, though you were almost positive he had more important things to do than entertain you for half an hour. Hell, he had said so himself. You felt a bubble of hope that at least enjoyed your company, but were careful not to get carried away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seeing Dark Side of Dimensions for the premier in theaters tomorrow with the boyfriend (HELL YEAH). I'm gonna spend the entire movie going "omfg he's so hot look at his hands look at his Blue Eyes holy shit" it's gonna be great. Apparently I get a free card for going, too?? I'm so excited, I still have my Blue Eyes Shining Dragon from the first movie when my parents took me. 
> 
> Anyway, that's why this chapter is early! I'm going to see the movie out-of-state and staying the night at my parents, then finishing my Ciri cosplay for Katsucon. So since I won't be back to post this before then, I figured you guys would prefer a chapter early rather than late :) 
> 
> Lemme know how you guys liked this chapter!! I tried to have some fun with Kaiba's character here, but he's still an asshole as always~


	4. An Exception Disproves the Rules

When you and Seto arrived back at his office, he was displeased to find a large stack of papers on the corner of his desk that were not there when the two of you had left. You took a seat in one of the chairs in front of his desk again and pulled out your calculus materials, fully prepared to start on the project yourself while Seto handled the papers that had magically appeared for him. You watched him sink into his chair with a scowl, beginning to sort through the stack of papers that all seemed to have a lot of words on them. At that moment, you vowed to never become the president of anything. Ever. 

As he read through and marked up the documents for work, you began to tackle the first part of your calculus assignment, discovering the first few problems were mostly review from calc I, though expecting them to get harder as you progressed. The two of you worked in content silence for about the next hour, before Seto finished with his stack of papers and demanded to see the work you had done thus far. You slid your notebook over to him to check, playing one of the pre-programmed games on your graphing calculator in the meantime. After a few minutes, he returned your notebook to you and began to pull out his own calculus book. 

"Well?" You raised an eyebrow to him.

"It's fine."

You smirked, "Don't ever let anyone hire you for a pep-talk, promise?"

He shot you a look of disdain, then quickly focused on his own problem. You both spent the next half hour talking through the problems when necessary, but mostly worked on your own side-problems in silence. Eventually, you were beginning to feel a bit sore so you stood up and began pacing around the office, stretching your arms over your head and letting out satisfied sighs each time part of your body popped. Seto seemed to mostly ignore you, continuing on the project. 

"Hey Seto?" 

He didn't respond, but his pencil stopped moving briefly to acknowledge that he was listening. You sauntered back over to the desk and perched yourself on the side, leaning over to watch as he worked. "How come you let me call you Seto?" 

"What do you mean?"

"Well I started off calling you Seto just because I'm used to calling people by their first name. But you never told me to call you Kaiba even though you were clearly uncomfortable with it the first couple days," you observed, "So why are you cool with it?" 

He glanced up from his work to briefly meet your gaze, before returning to his calculator. "It seemed like a waste of time to correct someone like you." He replied coolly.

You frowned at his response. Although you were pretty sure he was just being blunt and hadn't meant it as an insult, it still left a sour taste in your mouth. You returned to working in a dampened mood, only able to focus on the math for two problems before you needed to use a bathroom. You got up and wandered out of Seto's office, asking his secretary for directions. After doing your business, you took your time washing your hands and checked your hair and makeup in the mirror, the words 'someone like you' still rattling around in your head. You observed your reflection, noticing the beginnings of dark circles peeking out behind your concealer. You rubbed at the bridge of your nose to clear your mind before exiting the bathroom and heading back.

Once you made your way back into Seto's spacious and depressingly un-decorated office, you closed the door behind you and startled him out of his concentration, watching him blink up at you in confusion. 

"Did you not notice I had left?" You asked, directing a raised eyebrow toward him. He merely frowned in response, eliciting a chuckle from you, "You're a real Sherlock Holmes aren't you?"

"You're making fun of me." He replied curtly. 

"Actually-- well yeah I am-- but mostly I'm drawing a comparison. When Holmes was deep in thought he often didn't notice what was going on around him. Watson could leave the room for hours and Holmes would be none the wiser." You frowned when Seto's eyes lacked any recognition whatsoever. "You never read the series?"

"No." He replied, clearly trying to focus on the calculus despite your distractions. 

"I loved those books as a kid. Still do. Sherlock Holmes was my hero growing up," you mused. Seto merely grunted in response, half-listening. You took it as a sign to continue, "I had a hard time making friends when I was growing up--"

"Can't imagine why."

"--oh hush! But Sherlock Holmes was a great man despite the fact that no one really liked him, and eventually Watson came along and was his best friend despite how much of a jerk he was. I always held out hope that a Watson would show up for me." You paused, looking Seto up and down for a long while, "You know you're kinda like Sherlock. Probably more than I am."

He raised an eyebrow to you, "Does that mean I'm your hero?" He joked dryly.

You let out a laugh, "I think it means I tend to like unlikable characters."

"You think I'm unlikable?"

"Are you kidding? Absolutely." You propped your elbow up on the edge of the desk leaning your head to rest against your upright fist, "You're arrogant, rude, intimidating, cold, self-centered, egotistical--" You stopped yourself then you noticed his gaze had darkened to the point that you half-expected him to kick you out for insulting him in his own office. "--but I think your good point outweigh the bad, easily. I wouldn't want to be around you otherwise." 

"From how you've described me there's not much room for 'good points'." You had clearly made him upset, and though you had only spoken the truth, you felt a little bad for letting your opinion flood out like that. You wondered if you had merely wounded his pride, or if he was taking what you said to heart.

You allowed a small smile to dance across your face, "Oh come on don't be so dramatic. That's not true, Seto. You're also intelligent, hilarious, and despite it all I think you're kinda sweet. Well, when you want to be," you paused, "Plus you're hot." You tacked on for good measure, trying not to sound creepy.

He scoffed at your response, as if the appeasement you had offered wasn't good enough, or perhaps he didn't believe the good points you had offered, and you knit your brow together carefully, "You just want me to say more good things about you to feed your ego don't you?" The tiniest of smirks tugged at the edge of his lips, and you felt relieved for repairing at least some of the damage you had done with your earlier insults. 

"I take it you're one of those people that tries to see the good in everyone then?" Seto carefully set his pencil down on his desk and leaned back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest. 

You had to think about it for a while. "I don't think so..." you began slowly, "actually I tend to think the worst of people when I first meet them." You recalled your initial opinion of Seto after your run-in at the coffee shop, which hadn't changed much after your first meeting in the classroom. "I'm usually pretty cynical when it comes to that kind of stuff." You shrugged, "But if I get to know someone that's interesting I weigh the good points more heavily I guess."

"You think I'm interesting?" 

"Seto I don't think there's a person on this planet who doesn't think you're interesting."

 

The two of you worked in relative silence for a while, the problems had begun to get harder and each one took you longer than the last. Seto juggled between working on his own problems and work for the company, responding to emails and signing papers his secretary brought in periodically. About an hour into working, she entered the office with about five different manila folders filled with papers. She placed them on his desk and explained what each folder was filled with. One was the newest reports on their virtual reality gaming pods, one contained sales reports of the newest Duel Disk models and projections for the upcoming quarter, while yet another was filled with the newest job applications for the various openings at the company.

"You're in charge of hiring people too?" You asked, "Don't you have, I dunno, people to do that for you?"

He scoffed, "If I don't look over all the applications I'll end up with unqualified buffoons in my company." He picked the top folder off the stack-- the sales reports you thought-- and began scanning through the pages and marking them up with a red pen. You were about finished with the work Seto had scheduled you for, but admittedly you were enjoying hanging out in his office and didn't want to leave. So you picked up the folder with job applications and hoped that if you were doing something he wouldn't kick you out. 

"What are you doing?" He glared up at you from his reports. 

"Gonna see what it takes to work for the great Seto Kaiba," you winked at him mockingly, "Maybe I'll apply to be your stylist." 

He rolled his eyes at you but went back to his work, which you assumed meant you had free reign to both scrutinize his potential employees and send him an application to re-do his wardrobe. Though you had admitted he was able to pull off his ridiculously over-the-top trench coats, the man could stand for someone to put him in some normal looking clothes. Even if you hadn't seen him in real life without his shoulders padded to hell and back, you had seen photos of him without them. First off, padded shoulders may have been making a comeback, but Seto was taking it a bit too far. Second, they made it seem like he was compensating, which he absolutely did not need to, because although his shoulders weren't overly broad, they were masculine. 

You imagined that he would actually look just as good, if not better in just well-fitting clothes. Actually, you didn't have to imagine much, you had seen photos of the man in a suit, and he was handsome as hell. You tried to decide what styles would look best on him and what you could design for his body type. Imagining him in different clothes, imagining him in not very many clothes....

"Stop." Seto ordered, his eyes narrowed at you.

"Huh?" Oh man, you hoped he wasn't a mind reader.

"You've been staring at me for the last five minutes."

Had you? You glanced down at the folder of applications in your hands and realized you had not even started reading the first one. You chewed at the inside of your cheek, feeling pretty embarrassed. You debating telling that you had been thinking of what clothes he'd look good in-- obviously you'd omit all the clothes that would look good on his bedroom floor-- but you weren't even sure he was expecting you to say anything, as he was already immersed in his work again. You began flipping through the folder of applications, surprised with how lengthy they were. Each one was over eight pages long, filled with a myriad of detailed questions mainly focused on the applicant's skills, experience, personal history. You weren't even sure if a few of the questions were even legal to ask, never mind appropriate. Each of the applications were a little different depending on the job position, and you noticed about a third of them were for the Kaiba Corp. America branch. 

"Oh, hey," you picked up one of the applications for a software development position in America that had been filled out by someone you recognized, "Corey's applying for your American branch."

"Who?" Seto glanced up from his work.

You handed Corey's application to him, "I went to school with him, he was a senior when I entered. Head of the technology development club. I saw his senior final presentation, it was pretty cool." 

"What was it?"

You thought back, "Had to do with energy output-- he demonstrated it on some medical equipment but he said he wanted to use it for all sorts of wireless devices too-- using an adaptable AI to adjust how much energy the power source put out depending on the task." You pulled out your phone and scrolled through Corey's feed, trying to find the photos he had of his final project, "So as I understand it he programmed a chip with an AI that detected how much power a certain function of a device required, then hooked it up to either a battery or a solar panel, and controlled how much energy it released at certain times." You found one of the videos of his demonstrations and handed your phone to Seto, "I think the AI did something else too, but I'm not totally certain." 

Seto hummed and watched the video you had handed him, his face completely stoic. When he was finished he handed your phone back to you and then looked through the application again, "Well it's hardly a new concept by any stretch, but he didn't do it horribly." You wondered if that was the highest form of praise he could muster up, and felt a little bad for Corey in the back of your mind. 

"My concern is his work ethic," Seto paused and looked at one of the application pages again, tapping the fingers of his free hand on the desk, "He graduated in the summer correct?"

"Yeah, May."

"Why hasn't he sent in an application until now?"

You frowned, "I heard his mom died about a month before the semester ended, so he finished school and went back home to became his younger sister's guardian." You found Corey's sister on Facebook and noted her birthday was a week ago, "She just turned eighteen so I guess he didn't want to apply anywhere until then?"

Seto's shoulders tensed and his fingers stopped tapping on his desk. His eyes cast downward to a small framed photo on his desk, but it was turned away from you so you couldn't see what it was of. You recalled reading in his Wikipedia bio that he had a younger brother, and wondered if Corey's story hit a little too close to home. You watched him turn to his computer and start typing an email, clearly deep in thought. His fingers moved slower than usual as if he were distracted, and you tried to return your focus to the applications in front of you but couldn't stop looking at him. This may have been the most human you'd ever seen him.

After he was finished, he picked Corey's application back up and stored it in one of the drawers of his desk, glanced to the sales reports on his desk, then to you. You cocked your head, curious what he had just sent out. 

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, "He's more qualified than any of the other applicants I've seen so far, and the position needs to be filled by the end of the month."

"Wait, you gave him the job?" 

"I sent an email to the head of the department and told him to get in contact." He clarified, "He doesn't have the job yet."

A wide grin crossed your face, which Seto met with a frown, "Remember when I said your good points outweigh the bad?" You asked.

He sighed again, reaching over to grab the rest of the applications from your hand, "I have a lot of work to do and you're distracting me. Go home."

Your smile didn't leave your face as you picked up your tote full of calculus work, and as you left the building with his good deed replaying in your head, you weren't positive it would leave your face for the rest of the day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: the title for this chapter is part of a quote from my favorite Sherlock Holmes story, The Sign of Four. The full version is "I never make exceptions. An exception disproves the rule." I felt like it was some good irony for this chapter! I feel like we see enough of things Kaiba fires people for, so I thought it would be fun to write him with some compassion for hiring people. Hopefully it doesn't seem too out-of-character, I feel like when it comes to siblings though he's always had a soft spot.
> 
> As per usual, comments and critiques are always welcome and encouraged!


	5. It's Mokuba!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little bit of a shorter chapter since it's mainly a character introduction and set up for the next one, sorry! QQ

Saturday, the next evening Seto had scheduled the two of you work together on your calculus project, passed by slowly and uneventfully. You spent your morning sketching out some fashion ideas and trying out a few new techniques on your sewing machine, then the afternoon catching up on your dailies and weekly raid finders on WoW. Seto was supposed to text you the address of where you'd meet up and work over two hours ago, and as the time edged closer to seven with no update from him, you felt yourself growing anxious. You picked up your phone and checked again to see if he had responded to your message from an hour ago, but to your dismay he had not. 

You didn't want to bother him if he was just too busy to work today, or forgot about the plans entirely, but you were growing more and more impatient with the lack of communication. You thought about calling him, but didn't want to interrupt him if he was in the middle of a meeting or anything. Just as you were in the midst of making yourself some dinner, your phone buzzed. 

_Come to my office._

You frowned at the Hot Pocket in the microwave, then back down at your phone. Though you were glad he had bothered to text you in the first place, it rubbed you the wrong way that he expected you to be ready to go right at this very moment. Even though you were ready to go. It was the principal of it!

You slipped the Hot Pocket into its to-go pouch and texted him a _k_ as you slipped on a pair of boots and slung your tote bag over your shoulder. On your way to Kaiba Corporation you burnt your mouth on your food, putting you in quite a sour mood, so you were relieved when you entered the building to find the place practically empty since the work day had ended. You didn't want to deal with a fifteen minute elevator ride again. 

You knocked on Seto's office door, and let yourself in when you heard a muffled response from inside. You finished your food and tossed the wrapper in a bin next to the door, your eyes resting on Seto for the briefest of moments before you noticed someone else in the room. A young boy, no more than fifteen stared up at you with a huge grin. His grey eyes sparkled with wonder, the color a contrast to the rest of his Japanese features, and he sported a wild mane of hair that ended just below his shoulders.

"Jesus, how much mousse do you put in that?" You said without really thinking.

The kid tilted his head up at you, his grin still wide, but his brow knit in confusion. The two of you stared at each other, you feeling awkward but still expecting an answer, and him unsure if you were joking or not. Seto cleared his throat, causing both of you to turn your attention to him.

"This is Mokuba, my younger brother." He gestured to the kid. 

"Hi!" Mokuba exclaimed, quickly forgetting your earlier comment. 

You smiled, "Oh, I'm--"

"I already know who you are!" He interrupted, his loud voice booming with excitement, " _Nii-sama_ said you two are partners for a math class."

"Uh, yeah." The amount of energy this kid had was enough to make your head spin, and you wondered how someone as calm and easily annoyed as Seto was able to put up with him.

"I promised Mokuba I would spend time with him today," Seto stated, his tired eyes locked on you, "So he'll be joining us while we work."

"Oh, no problem." You replied with a shrug, looking down at Mokuba with a smile, which he met effortlessly. You didn't think you'd ever seen such a genuinely happy person in your life, curious if he and Seto were actually related at all. Looking between them you could clearly tell they were brothers, but their personalities couldn't be more different. You slid into one of the chairs in front of Seto's desk and began pulling out your work whilst Mokuba bounded into the chair next to you. 

"So you're from America right?" Mokuba chirped.

"Yeah, I moved here when I transferred schools," you replied, opening up your book and passing over some problems you had done on your own for Seto to look over. 

" _Nii-sama_ and I go to America sometimes when he has work there," Mokuba began, "I really like it sometimes but it depends on where you go! Everyone in California is so friendly, but when we got to the gaming shows in Boston it's so much different. The weather is always different too depending on where you go! It’s such a big country! We should all go together sometime and you can show _Nii-sama_ and me where you live and where you like to hang out!" Holy shit the kid could just talk, you didn't think he had stopped to breathe yet. "So do you like Japan so far?"

You nodded and jotted down some equations for reference, "I mean I've only really been in Domino, but it's nice. Everything's so close, the weather's good so far."

"You haven't gone anywhere else yet?" Mokuba sounded shocked, "Why not?"

"Well I don't have a car here, and I haven't really willed myself to take the trains anywhere yet. I'll probably check out Tokyo and some of the other places for winter break." 

"Where in Domino have you been so far?" You could feel Mokuba leaning closer and closer to you as you talked.

"Uh... my apartment, school, a few restaurants," you paused to grab the work Seto had finished checking, glancing over the notes he made to fix, "that's about it."

"That's all?!" Mokuba yelled, practically right in your ear, and you jumped a little in your chair. You glanced between the two brothers, Mokuba with eyes the size of dinner plates and Seto with, well, dark circles the size of dinner plates. Seto was obviously trying to concentrate on his own work but between the two of you talking it looked like he was having trouble. "We have to take you somewhere fun!" He turned to Seto, a pleading look dancing on his features, " _Nii-sama_ let's take her to Kaiba Land!"

"Kaiba Land?" You raised an eyebrow. 

"Yeah! It's the amusement park _Nii-sama_ built, it's pretty close to here!" Mokuba exclaimed with a grin. 

You turned your attention to Seto, "You named an amusement park after yourself?" You asked with a smirk.

"It's named after the company," he replied with a frown, obviously not amused by your accusation.

"Oh my god you actually named a theme park after yourself your ego must be the size of Jupiter!" You teased, leaning over the desk a little as your smirk widened, "Does it have its own moons?" 

Seto scoffed at your joke, and immediately turned his attention back to his work, but you heard Mokuba muffle a giggle next to you. At least the little scamp had a sense of humor.

You spent a good portion of the evening trying to focus your gaze on the work in front of you, and working on problems during pauses in the conversation. After about an hour of work, Mokuba exclaimed he was just starving, and insisted the three of you get something to eat. Not willing to leave in the middle of work, Seto suggested you order out, and Mokuba ended up getting takeout from a very expensive Chinese place. 

You tried to get either of them to take your money for your food, but they both flat out refused, Mokuba saying, "It's okay if we buy it for you because you're our friend," like a big ole sweetheart, and Seto flatly stating, "I'm richer than you'll ever be, I don't need your money." You again thought to yourself how different the two brothers seemed from each other; Mokuba was sweet and loud and friendly, while Seto was rude and aloof. Still, the fact that neither of them would take your money was both expected and annoying. Money was one of the things you tended to stew over, especially when you felt like people were wasting it on you, so you were noticeably moody. 

Mokuba was obviously uncomfortable with your bad mood, despite your best attempts to bury it under calculus problems, because he kept throwing you concerned glances and fidgeting. You toyed with the thought that he may have acted like this when his brother was in a bad mood-- which was all the time-- when Seto's secretary brought in two huge bags of food for the three of you. Mokuba about launched himself across the room to unpack and sort through the food, and you noticed that the majority of it was his. Seto had ordered some sort of fancy looking beef dish and a side of rice, and you were handed your bag of chicken skewers and some egg drop soup. Everything else in the bags belonged to the little devil, from fried rice to chicken to a sweet and sour pork, you wondered where he managed to fit all the food. He wasn't as skinny as his brother by any stretch, but he was still really small, and you wondered how fast his metabolism had to be. 

The rest of the evening was quiet, Mokuba keept himself busy with his food, and you and Seto nibbled between problems. When the two of you were finished with the calculus section for the night, and your food, you began to pack up your work while Seto looked over the last of your completed problems. Mokuba grabbed at your hand as you were about to put your calculator back in your tote bag, and you met his sparkling eyes with your own. 

"What are you doing tomorrow?"

"Hm...," you searched your brain, just about exhausted from trying to keep up with the amount of energy Mokuba exuded, "Well, I've got nothing planned for morning, nada planned for afternoon-- can't miss that-- and zip for the evening. So unfortunately, I'm all booked." You told him playfully. 

He belted out a genuine laugh, "Good! We're gonna go to Kaiba Land tomorrow! Right _Nii-sama_?" 

The way Mokuba assumed you'd just go along with his plan made you draw parallels between the two brothers, the way Seto told you that you were going to do something and assuming you'd do it. You wondered if it had something to do with their upbringing, having so much money, just being used to buying whatever they wanted. You assumed they must have had it easy, at least until their father died. 

The two of you turned your attention to Seto, who had quite the frown painted on his face, "I don't have time to waste the day at Kaiba Land."

Mokuba pouted up at him, "But you promised to spend the weekend with me! And I wanna show her Kaiba Land!"

Seto sighed, reaching his long fingers up to massage his temples, and you frowned between the two of them. You didn't exactly want to get involved, and you didn't really care either way what happened, but you kind of wanted Seto to say fuck it to work and come along to the amusement park just to get away from the stress for the day. The guy looked like he hadn’t had a day off in weeks, and it would be a nice change of pace to see him doing something other than working.

"Fine." He finally muttered, "But I'll need to do some planning for the new ride we're releasing this summer." His face was stern, but you could hear the love for his brother in his voice. 

"Yes!" Mokuba cheered, throwing his hands up in the air and casting you a wild grin, "You're gonna love it! Kaiba Land's the best park in the world!" 

"Mokuba, your bias is showing, put that away." You teased, ruffling his hair as you walked toward Kaiba's private elevator to go home. Seto stood and headed to the elevator with you, swiping his ID so you could get in.

"We'll be at your apartment at ten. Do not keep me waiting." He ordered. 

"Yes your highness." You offered him a tired smile, glancing behind you at an excited Mokuba, then back to meet Seto's eyes, "You're a good big brother."

He made a _humph_ and shook his head as you got in the elevator. Mokuba waved good-bye to you wildly, and you directed an exhausted salute his way, ready to get home and relax in a hot bath before turning in early.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm writing Mokuba's appearance from DSoD mainly! He was so adorable in that movie, I just had to. If you haven't seen the movie yet I highly recommend it! It was soooooo good. 
> 
> I'm definitely playing up Mokuba's character a bit here to really show the difference between the brothers. Plus I like to think he's excited to see a girl in his big brother's office~


	6. Kaiba Land

The three of you entered Kaiba Land through a private gate in the front, skipping the long line to get in when the guards recognized the brothers who accompanied you. The park was nothing short of amazing, you had to admit. It was absolutely massive, being the largest amusement park in Japan, and it was packed tighter than a can of sardines. You were thankful that it had begun to cool down in late September, and there was a pleasant breeze that kept you from feeling too crowded. One half of the park encompassed some of the biggest, fastest rides you'd ever seen, and you could see the mini train station that carted passengers to and from the water park. 

"So what do you wanna do first?" Mokuba chirped, "There's the water park, the duel arena, or we could just ride some rides. The Blue Eyes coaster is my favorite!" 

"I vote we go on the coaster, so I can get some photos of Seto riding his favorite dragon, " you snickered, softly elbowing Seto in the arm and flashing him a devilish smile. 

"You're insufferable." He glowered at you, and the two Kaibas led the way to the roller coaster.

Mokuba pointed at the duel arena on your way to the ride, which was shaped like the head of a Blue Eyes White Dragon. "Have you ever played Duel Monsters before?"

You shook your head, "Nah, but I've seen some tournaments. It looks fun."

"We should go there once we ride all the rides! _Nii-sama_ can teach you how to play!"

Seto humphed, "I don't have time to waste on teaching anyone to play a game as complex and strategy intensive as Duel Monsters." 

Mokuba frowned, "Well I guess I could teach you then, I'm nowhere near as good as _Nii-sama_ though." 

You would probably prefer Mokuba teaching you anyway, he seemed a lot more forgiving and patient than his older brother, and you weren't sure you would be able to stand Seto's conceited attitude-- no matter how well-deserved-- whenever you messed up. The three of you made your way to the Blue Eyes coaster, and the Kaibas took you right to the front of the line. 

You whistled, "Man you guys make me feel like such a freeloader."

"That's because you are." Seto vexed.

"Well while you're in such a giving mood," you grinned, "May as well let me get that photo huh? Maybe flash a lil' smile?" You pulled your cell phone out of your pocket and waved it in his direction, "I could probably sell it to the media and pay tuition."

Seto scoffed and turned his face away from you. You and Mokuba exchanged playful glances as the three of you got on the coaster. 

"I'll take a photo with you!" Mokuba said with a grin. 

"Aw Mokuba you are just a sweetheart aren't you?" The two of you sat next to each other in the car behind Seto and fastened yourselves in, "Seto isn't your brother just a sweetheart?" 

He waved his hand behind him dismissively as the coaster began its initial climb. You turned on your camera app and positioned it for a selfie of you and Mokuba, getting a few shots in before you quickly put it away in preparation for the drop. The entire ride was thrilling, and you and Mokuba laughed the whole time. You were already glad you had decided to come along to the theme park with the brothers, it was way more fun than spending your Sunday napping on the couch with your cats. 

Once the three of you were off the ride, you and Mokuba looked over the photos you had gotten and picked out the best one for you to post to Instagram. He insisted the two of you follow each other, and then added you on Facebook and Twitter as well. Seto was quiet as the two of you debated which ride to go on next, but when you glanced over at him he looked more relaxed than you'd seen him in the past week. Mokuba led you and Seto around the park for a while, and you were content with doing whatever he wanted to do. When you weren't on any of the rides, Seto spent a lot of his time on his cell phone checking emails, and you wondered how he didn't just collapse from overworking himself. 

About two hours into riding most of the rides in Kaiba Land, Seto excused himself to go meet with some contractors to talk about plans for the new ride, and Mokuba suggested you head to the Duel Arena so he could teach you how to play his brother's favorite card game. The two of you watched a few duels between some kids in the middle of the arena, and he explained the different phases, card types, and all the other basics as best he could, before insisting the best way to learn was in the moment. 

He dragged you over to one of the dueling areas in the middle of the arena and one of the staff members handed you each a duel disk and asked you to select a premade deck. You weren't really sure what any of the deck types meant or did, but decided the Harpies in the Harpie Deck looked pretty kick ass. They were basically winged dominatrixes, and really who doesn't love a winged dominatrix? 

Mokuba talked you through the first couple turns until you got the hang of the game, but you were barely able to keep up with him between trying to learn what all the cards in your deck and trying to predict what you'd get next. You lost the first two games you played pretty hard, but did much better in the third game, getting him down to two hundred life points before he pulled a Mirror Force on you. By the fourth duel, you had enough experience playing with the deck to discover that Harpie cards were actually broken, and thoroughly beat Mokuba in five turns.

"Wow you learn really fast!" Mokuba praised.

"I think it's more Harpy's Feather Duster is an OP card and it's way too easy to get like 3 Harpie Lady Cyber Bondages out in one turn," you chuckled back.

Deciding to call it on a high note, you suggested the two of you head over to the water park. Mokuba hyped it up the entire way to the shuttle, and being an avid lover of all things water slides you were growing pretty damn excited.

"Your brother is actually a ten-year-old trapped in a twenty-year-old's body isn't he?" You smirked as the Blue Eyes train doors opened for the two of you. Mokuba grinned up at you, but you noticed a flash of sadness in his eyes. You wondered if your joke had stirred up something inside of him, but didn't probe him for information, letting the ride to the other end of the theme park pass quietly.

When you made it to the water park, you each went into a changing room to get into your swimwear. There was a full length mirror in the room that you checked yourself in, noting your pastel pink swimsuit was possibly the best purchase you'd ever made. You met Mokuba outside of the changing area, and he tugged you along to some of his favorite water slides. 

First you rode a few inner tube slides, some of the fastest you'd ever been on, and got positively drenched. He insisted you go on the water coaster next, which was for all intents and purposes a roller coaster that splashed water on you every time you made a sharp turn or dive, and the two of you ended up riding it two more times because you loved it so much. 

"What's that one?" You asked, gesturing over to the Kaiser Seahorse themed slide.

"Oh that one's fun! You slide in an inner tube and it spirals down and then drops you into another slide!" Mokuba grinned, " It's not my favorite but _Nii-sama_ likes it." 

"Oh? I have a hard time imagining your brother in a water park." But you had an easy time imagining him in nothing but a pair of fitted swim trunks. You allowed the picture of Seto bare chested and the perfect dampness to linger in your mind for just a moment longer than socially acceptable. 

"Oh, _Nii-sama_ rides all the rides at least once to make sure they're perfect before they open to the public!" Mokuba said, "I think he likes the water slides about as much as any of the other rides though."

You hummed, and the two of you headed over to the water park's biggest slide. It started out as a fairly standard inner tube slide, really fast with a few drops, but then opened into a huge bowl slide, probably about the size of a circular football stadium with tall walls you couldn't ever hope to see over. You looked around your new surroundings in awe, your mouth agape and your eyes wide. "This is awesome!" You exclaimed, "Isn't this awesome?! I feel so tiny!"

Mokuba laughed, "That's the idea!"

You traveled around the vortex, getting closer and closer to the second half of the water slide, then dropping into it and getting soaked. There were a few more bumps that made your heart jump each time you hit one, then you were spat out into a spacious pool. The two of you dragged yourselves out of the water and back onto dry land, and you could barely contain your excitement.

"That was the coolest ride I have ever been on. It was so big and spinny and," you threw your arms out to either side of you as far as they could go, "It was like this big and I felt so small it was so cool!" 

"You'd think you'd be used to feeling small considering how short you are," you heard a familiar voice behind you, and you and Mokuba turned to face Seto. 

"Yo Seto! Who designed that thing?" You ignored his comment, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of admitting you were pretty small, but you were also way too excited from the slide. "Give them a raise that was amazing!" 

He smirked, "Giving myself a raise would be pointless."

Your eyes sparkled, "You designed it?" You threw your arm behind you and pointed at the slide. 

"Yes."

"Dude you are awesome!" You clapped your hands together with a wild grin. You had never has so much fun on a ride in your life, and you were still in awe.

"And you are a child." Seto raised an eyebrow to you, and Mokuba had grown wide-eyed watching the banter transpire between the two of you, unaccustomed to seeing his brother joke around with anyone like that. For normal people this would be pretty common, but for someone like Seto Kaiba to be jesting with someone like you....

"Can we go on it again?" You whirled around to Mokuba, who nodded, but Seto held up a hand to stop you.

"I need to get back to work," he leveled a gaze at his younger brother, "And you still have homework." 

Mokuba threw his head back and groaned, " _Nii-sama_ I can finish it later tonight!"

"Mokuba, we're leaving." Seto replied firmly. 

You processed the sudden change in dynamic between the two that looked less brotherly and more like Seto had taken on the role of a father. You recalled reading that the previous head of the company had committed suicide shortly after Seto took over several years ago, but didn't know many details since the media had been kept pretty quiet about the whole incident. Seto seemed to slip into this role easier than you'd imagine after just four years though, and you wondered how long they had been this way, what kind of a father Gozaburo Kaiba must have been. 

Maybe you'd ask someday, when you were much closer to either of the boys, but for now you tried to push the thought from your mind when you and Mokuba went the changing rooms to change out of your swimwear. The three of you headed back to the limousine, and you checked your phone absently only to find it had absolutely blown up with notifications. You scrolled through Instagram to find you had over three thousand likes on the picture of you and Mokuba, and about half that amount of people had followed you. 

"Holy crap kid how many followers do you have?"

Mokuba peered over your phone and laughed, "I'm surprised you only got that many likes! You'll probably have triple that by tomorrow." He flashed you a celebrity smile. 

"Good lord." You chuckled and shook your head 

"What, you don't want more followers?" He asked.

"I never asked for this," you lowered your voice and attempted to make it sound gravely in your best Adam Jensen impersonation. Which flew right over both brothers' heads. "Really? Deus Ex?" You glanced between the two of them, "One of the greatest games of our generation? Published by Squeenix?" Mokuba furrowed his brow and Seto stared down at you impassively. You could practically hear crickets. "You people disgust me."

The limo ride to your apartment was comfortably quiet, Seto worked on his laptop, you gazed out the window at the passing city, and Mokuba fiddled around on his phone. When you pulled up to your place and got out of the limousine, Mokuba insisted the three of you do something together again soon, which you gladly agreed to. You had really enjoyed the day with the brothers. Though, Seto quickly dismissed the idea, stating that he was far too busy to entertain the two of you all the time, to which Mokuba pouted and you smirked. 

Good 'ole Kaiba.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I based the design of the Kaiser Seahorse off a slide I rode at Colossalcon. It's literally my favorite slide I've ever been on I love it so much. I drag my friends on it like 50 times at the con and I'm pretty sure they're sick of me by now. I had a hard time describing it so here's a photo if you're having a hard time picturing it:  
> https://i.ytimg.com/vi/JELNyYRttKo/maxresdefault.jpg . But like way bigger because it's Kaiba Land obviously.


	7. "Apology"

Seto was in a particularly bad mood on Monday when you took your seat next to him. He had his laptop out as usual, but rather than writing code, it looked like he was reading a lengthy document. His fingers were laced together against his mouth, and his shoulders were tense. You noticed his dark circles had gotten darker, small bags forming under his eyes. He looked like he hadn't slept last night. 

"Everything okay?" You cast him a worried glance as you pulled out your notebook, checking the time on your phone to note that your professor was running late. 

"No." His voice was strained. 

"What's wrong? You look like you haven't slept." You pulled out your fashion sketch book and your marker set, deciding to work on some designs while you waited for class to start. 

"I haven't." His was being very short with you, and you were concerned equally for his mental and physical state. You spun your chair to fully face him and cocked your head, waiting for more of an answer. He glanced at you from the corner of his eyes and sighed, "I've been reading and responding to reports written by utter buffoons for the past-" he glanced down at the clock in the corner of his laptop "-Four hours." 

"That sounds awful." 

He reached one of his hands up to rub his tired eyes, a soft sigh leaving his lips, "I have a lot to catch up on since you two dragged me around Kaiba Land and wasted an entire day of work," he began, "Considering this is a particularly busy time for the company." 

You frowned, a bit miffed that he was putting the blame onto you and Mokuba when they two of you had just wanted him to relax for a day. He spent half of it working anyway. How much work did the guy have? 

"Why don't you get someone to help you go through all the reports so you can get done faster?"

He leveled a tired glare at you, "I would need a person competent enough."

"I can help if you want," you offered him a small smile. Though you figured his quip about wasting his time at Kaiba Land yesterday was just him being his usual over-dramatic self, if you had actually had a hand in his work being so piled up, the least you could do was offer to help him out.

He scoffed and turned his attention to his computer, "Did you not hear me? I said competent not inadequate." 

You raised your eyebrows at him, a little shocked that he had actually called you inadequate, of all things. You scraped your teeth against your bottom lip and resisted the urge to say something along the lines of "You fucking what mate?". You were not above starting a fight if he was going to resort to calling you essentially useless. You frowned, turning away from him annoyed, and picked up a marker to work on your current sketch. You recognized he was tired and in a bad mood, but acting like a prick when you were just trying to offer your help was uncalled for. True, you frequently found Seto onerous and difficult to deal with, but this was probably the first time he had genuinely made you angry. 

Your professor entered the room about ten minutes late, apologizing profusely, and class started promptly thereafter. You took down the notes that were on the board but had a difficult time actually processing any of the information. Often, being upset made it difficult for you to concentrate, and today was no exception. You were probably going to have to re-read the information and put in extra study time to fully understand it, and that put you into an even worse mood. 

The moment class ended you quickly put away your things, ready to leave the room as fast as possible and find something to cheer yourself up before your next class. You weren't quite as mad at Seto as you had been at the beginning of class, but you were still plenty upset. As you were fixing to leave, you thought you heard him mutter your name under your breath, and you paused, waiting to see if he said anything else. When he didn't, you second guessed yourself, thinking he may have just been mumbling to himself about work. 

"Uh did you say something?" You had a hard time keeping the edge out of your voice, and if he tried to say something rude to you, you were probably going to start some shit. Seto tilted his head down to you slightly, his tired blue eyes fixed on you from behind his dense crop of brown bangs that were noticeably messier than usual. He didn't speak right away, but you could practically see the cogs turning in his head as he thought of what to say to you. 

"I'm not... mad at you." He finally muttered, narrowing his eyebrows and frowning in your direction. 

You blinked in surprise. What the hell was that supposed to mean, taking the time to inform you that he wasn't upset? Was that to say he hadn't meant what he said earlier, or that he felt bad about it? Was that supposed to be his version of an apology? He didn't even take back calling you inadequate.

You held back a smirk, the man was utterly hopeless, he couldn't even apologize properly. 

Though it was easy for you to justify ignoring his poor excuse for an apology, you had a hard time actually staying mad at him. Almost immediately your anger was gone, and you even felt a little warm and fuzzy inside. The fact that His Highness was at least trying to fix what he had said, however poorly executed, was enough for you to forgive him. Had he been anyone else, you probably would have stayed mad for much longer, but Seto Kaiba seemed the kind of person who would almost never make an effort to “apologize” to someone.

You sighed over-dramatically, gazing out the corner of your eyes into the distance, "Well, I suppose I can't stay mad at you forever, then." You crossed one leg over the other and leaned your cheek against the palm of your hand, "So, do you have plans to go to bed anytime soon?"

"No." He replied briskly. 

You pursed your lips into a half-frown, though you couldn't say you hadn't expected the answer, "In that case why don't I go grab you a coffee? You look like you could use one." You stood up before he could answer, and grabbed your wallet from your bag, "How do you take it?"

He folded his hands on the table in front of his laptop and looked up at you, the tired frown still on his face. He glanced at the time on his laptop, then back to you, and sighed. "Black. Three shots of espresso."

"Three?!" You honestly expected one shot as a given, and two would have been a bit overboard but you wouldn't have been surprised. But three seemed a tad, no, more than a tad excessive. "Are you just trying to impress me? Or are you actually working toward a heart attack?"

"Neither. I can handle it fine." 

"You can handle it?" You chuckled, directing a raised eyebrow to him, "You sound like a drug addict. Fine, I will go buy your black coffee with three shots of espresso but if you end up in the hospital someday I reserve the right to say 'I told you so'." You teased as you made your exit. On your way to the Starbucks on campus, you texted Mokuba asking if it was normal for Seto to pull all-nighters like this. 

_Yeah, Nii-sama doesn't get much sleep this time of year because he has to get everything done for the Christmas releases. Usually it calms down mid-November._

You frowned. Mid-November was a little over a month away, and on top of your massive group project and his other classes, you were anticipating his inevitable collapse in the next few weeks. As someone who frequently pulled all-nighters when you were a programming major, you knew the strain it put on the body after just one or two a week. 

You ordered your drinks from the young man staffing the Starbucks, and wondered if there was any way you could offer to help Seto while he was so busy. Maybe you could take on a bigger portion of the group project-- as it stood, the workload was split evenly between the two of you-- but if you kept to the schedule he made, you would have no problem taking on more. Your name was called, and you grabbed the drinks to bring back upstairs.

When you returned to the classroom with Seto's coffee in one hand and a vanilla chai for yourself in the other, you found him with his face buried in his hands. For a moment, you thought he might be sleeping, but then he exhaled a muffled, exasperated sigh. You made your way to the table and set his coffee down by his laptop, returning to your own seat and taking the top off your drink to blow on it. 

"That bad, huh?"

Seto willed himself to pick his face up off his hands, his eyes dark. "Everyone is an imbecile."

"Everyone?"

"Absolutely everyone."

You took a sip of your chai and cocked your head to the side, "What are these reports for anyway?"

He picked up his own cup of coffee and took a sip without bothering to check the temperature. His eyes narrowed at the laptop screen, then to you, "Various game development market analyses for Kaiba Corporation's planned game releases in the upcoming two years."

You furrowed your brow in confusion, causing him to let out another sigh, probably less than thrilled to explain to you the ins and outs of his company's research branch. "Basically reports on what genres will sell and when to release them," he dumbed it down for you. 

"Gotcha." You nodded and took another sip of your tea, "So what's wrong with them?"

"They're poorly-written, nondescript, ill-researched... should I go on?"

"I think I get the gist," you half-chuckled, "Sorry your employees are dumpster fires."

You took out your phone and browsed your socials, your Instagram now getting about ten times the attention it had days prior thanks to Mokuba's insane popularity. Seto returned to his work begrudgingly, but seemed in a slightly (very slightly) better mood with a coffee in his hand. You spent the silence contemplating how to bring up an offer of taking on more of the project’s work, fully anticipating him to refuse your offer. He was the kind of man who needed to be in control, to do everything himself in order to make sure it was all perfect. It was why he was doing so much work for his company when you were positive he had employees for it all, and then reason he insisted on checking every problem you did for your group assignment. 

You didn’t think he would be willing to let you do more than half the work unless you had a logical reason for it. Which you did, his health and sanity were both perfectly good explanations, but you had your doubts he would agree. Although you cared about him not dying from overworking himself, he certainly seemed like he did not.

Seto finished his coffee way before you were done with your tea, and you watched him use his newfound burst of energy to write a lengthy termination letter to the head of the market research department. You took another sip of your chai to find that it had gone cold, and wondered how long you had been spaced out. You glanced at the time on your phone to discover you only had half an hour before your next class, and groaned. 

“Seto?”

“Hm?” He grunted. 

“You wanna let me take on some more of the group project?” You asked.

He didn’t react for a moment, finishing his email before he even acknowledged your offer. He hit send, then swiveled his chair to face you, elbows propped on the arms and fingers laced together. 

“Excuse me?”

“Our calculus project,” you clarified, “I’ll take some extra portions of it so you can focus more on work.” 

“No,” Seto replied gruffly, “I can handle what I gave myself, otherwise I wouldn’t have have assigned that much.”

You sighed and rolled your eyes. Though you had expected the answer, it was ludicrous to you that he was essentially letting his pride get in the way of making life easier for himself. Normally you would have pushed until he either agreed to your request or kicked you out, but after the way he had talked to you earlier you listened to your better judgement and ended the conversation there. You would keep offering until he finally gave in, but for now you let him return to his work without pestering him about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this may be my weakest chapter so far? I dunno I'm not really feeling it as much as I would like to. I don't know if it's just paced funny or the whole scenario is throwing me off but there's something about it I'm pretty meh about. I don't hate it, otherwise I would have scrapped it, but I certainly don't like it as much as others. 
> 
> Ah, truly the artist's plight. 
> 
> As always, feedback is welcome and appreciated! <3


	8. Portraiture

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine's Day my darlings! I've currently got a fever and a splitting headache, but that won't stop me from updating! Wish me luck in feeling better before Katsucon @-@
> 
> This chapter is basically pure fluff, I thought it would be a good one for Valentine's. I sure as hell like this one a lot more than the last, so hopefully you guys will like it, too!

If there was one thing you had learn about drawing portraits in your studio art class, it was that virtually no one could stay still for the several hours it took you to complete your first semester project. Yourself included. So after multiple attempts with two different people, you found yourself growing increasingly frustrated with your classmates’ utter lack of restraint. You could get them to stay still long enough for the outline, but by then they began getting restless and moving around into different light, which made it impossible for you to get the shading right. 

Three days before your project was due, you still had not found anyone who could stay still long enough for you to perfect a single drawing. Despite you staying still for three to four hours for your classmates’ projects, no one seemed willing to do the same for you. At least, not well. So when you sat next to Seto in calculus and he hardly moved the entire two hours your class lasted, only moving his fingers to scroll through work on his laptop, you knew you had found your solution. That is, if he would agree to model for you. 

Which is how you found yourself in his office on Wednesday afternoon, a day you were not scheduled to work on your calculus project together, snuggled in one of his chairs that you had pulled around his desk. You sat sideways, leaning against one of the arms of the chair with your legs dangling lazily off the side of the other arm, a sketchbook in your lap against your thighs. Seto sat in front of you, one elbow propped up on his desk, his face resting against his hand and his lips lightly touching his index finger. His other hand was on his mouse, scrolling through reports and other work on his monitor. 

“You sure that’s the position you want for the next three plus hours?” You glanced up at him as you set up your makeshift workspace, different pencils, a sharpener, and a kneaded eraser perched near the corner of his desk next to you.

Seto glanced at you from the corner of his eye, his fingers twitching when he became aware of the hand resting against his mouth. 

“Yes. If I move you’ll just have to deal with it.” He replied, then returned his gaze to his computer. 

“Oh? You don’t think you can stay still for me?” You challenged, “I thought it would be easy for you, but if you can’t handle it--”

“Shut up,” he ordered, and you bit back a smirk. “Of course it will be easy. Sitting still is a simple task, even a child could do it.”

You hummed to keep yourself from laughing, enjoying how easy it could be to rile the man up when you attacked his capabilities.You grabbed your softest graphite pencil, and began laying out your page, starting with the basic shape of his head and hand before beginning on any detail work. The two of you worked in silence for a while, and you were very pleased that Seto hardly moved at all, perhaps influenced by your jab at his pride. Occasionally you would observe his fingers subtly flex and twitch, usually his brow would furrow at the same time, and you assumed the reactions were in response to his work. 

Sometimes, you caught your gaze lingering on him a little longer than it should have. The way his bangs fell in his face, the way his blue eyes sparkled behind them, how soft his lips looked pressed against his finger. Though you tried to rationalize that you were merely observing for the drawing, you knew that it was a lie, and had to force your eyes away from him to focus on your work more than once. 

“Do you like music?” You asked absently as you reached for the pencil sharpener.

“That’s an idiotic question,” he replied, his eyes still on his monitor. 

“Huh? Why?”

“Everyone likes music. You should be asking what kind of music I like.” His voice was even and emotionless. 

“Right, of course, how could I make such a silly mistake?” You replied sarcastically, “Please regale me, Your Highness, what kind of music do you like?” You reached over to the trash can underneath his desk to dump the pencil shavings from your sharpener. 

“Classical,” he replied through a scoff, clearly unamused by your teasing.

“Really? Why?” you asked, placing your sharpener back on the desk and returning to your sketch. 

“It’s calming.”

“Well sure I guess, but I somehow expected you to like something more… angry?” You began sketching out the shape of his fingers, already having tried to get the position right twice before. 

“Angry?”

“Yeah like, metal, hard rock, maybe some rap. You know. When I’m really stressed I like listening to angry stuff, it helps me get out pent-up frustration.” You glanced up at him to study his expression, “And you’re constantly stressed.” 

He said nothing, his brow knit in thought, though you weren’t sure if it had anything to due with your observation or with the work in front of him. His index finger tapped lightly against the left mouse button.

“Do you wanna listen to some music?” 

“Do you plan to have me listen to your ‘angry music’?” He muttered, and you detected a hint of teasing in his voice. 

“Wouldn’t that be fun?” You grinned and reached into your back pocket to pull out your phone, “But nah, I have some orchestral music on here if you’d prefer.” 

“Oh?” He asked blankly.

“Yeah my mom sings in a choir so she records her concerts and sends them to me when I’m not home,” you replied, scrolling through your music library to find their most recent rendition of Handel’s _Messiah_. “It’s not perfect quality but it’s pretty. Wanna listen?”

“Whatever.” He kept his eyes locked on his monitor. 

You pressed play on the music and set your phone on his desk, returning your attention to your portrait of Seto. You were pleased that he had hardly moved a muscle in over an hour, only small twitches of his fingers or eyebrows, and the movement of his eyes as they followed the words on the screen. Still, you were only about a quarter of the way done with your drawing, and you wondered how long he could possibly stay still for.

It was far from the first time you had heard Handel’s _Messiah_ , it was a staple performance during the holidays, so you heard it at least once a year either in-person or on your phone like this. The current rendition you had playing was a year old, from the Christmas performance your mom sang in. Though you didn’t know all the words, you knew enough that you could sing along for a good portion, and hum the parts you weren’t as familiar with. You had to consciously make an effort to do exactly the opposite, afraid Seto would find your sing-humming annoying. He’d probably tell you to turn the music off in that case, and you weren’t sure how long you’d be able to stand silence. 

“Ugh, your fingers are so long,” you muttered, furrowing your brow at the paper. 

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing. I just hate drawing hands, and you’ve got a lot more hand than most people.” You said bitterly, taking your eraser to his index finger. 

“You should be thanking me for the practice, then.” A smirk tugged at the corner of his lips. 

“Oh shut up,” you chuckled back. 

You spent quite a while finally getting the shape of his fingers right and began shading before the brightness changed too drastically. The sunlight sparkling in from the window behind him made for some interesting lighting since you had asked if he could turn off the other lights in his office. His brown hair shimmered and the bangs over his face cast some pretty shadows. You kept glancing back up to his sapphire blue eyes, bright and intense against the rest of his Japanese features. It would probably look nice to color them in using a blue pencil, and keep the rest of the portrait black and white, you thought. 

“Was your mom Japanese too?” You asked as you began blending the shadows on his face. When you glanced up to get the shading right you noticed his eyes had narrowed on you and his brows were furrowed in either annoyance or anger, you couldn’t really tell which. He had stopped reading the report in front of him, his eyes frozen on one spot.

“What the _hell_ kind of question is that?” Seto asked slowly, enunciating every word despite his even tone. You blinked a few times in surprise, unsure what you had done to make him upset.

“Uh,” you began, confused, “Well your eyes are blue, and I’ve seen pictures of your father and he was Japanese right? I just--”

“Genetic abnormalities happen.” He replied curtly. 

“Oh, okay?” You glanced down at the sketch in front of you before returning your gaze to him, unsure what to say, “Sorry if I said something wrong.” 

His eyes flickered to you, eyebrows still knit together, but his gaze less intense than when it was on his screen. _Then Shall the Eyes of the Blind be Opened_ lulled from your phone to fill the uncomfortable silence between the two of you. You tried to force a smile onto your face but just ended up looking worried, which prompted a sigh from him. 

“Gozaburo Kaiba was not my biological father,” he said, voice completely devoid of emotion. 

“Oh,” you mumbled, then the realization of why he seemed uncomfortable hit you. “Oh. So you were--?”

“Adopted.” 

“Mokuba too?”

“Yes.” 

You frowned at Seto’s complete lack of emotion. It wasn’t like it was uncommon for him to be calm and stoic, but you could usually detect some sort of feeling in his voice. This was like he was forcing himself to push emotion away, and you didn’t like the sound of it. You felt bad for bringing up the topic in the first place, even though you couldn’t possibly have known, it was obvious he didn’t enjoy talking about his family.

“Sorry,” you said again, “I shouldn’t have brought it up. I didn’t mean to be insensitive.” 

“Forget it.” He replied, eyes snapping back to his work, effectively ending the discussion. You watched him return to reading the report in front of him for a moment before returning to your sketch. Your mind whirled trying to find something else to say to make everything better, but you had already apologized and he seemed against any more conversation. 

You focused your mind on Handel’s _Messiah_ and let your hand flow across the page without thinking of what you were drawing. Time flowed by you quickly when you blocked everything out, so you pushed any thoughts from your brain and treated Seto as nothing more than a model as you shaded. It was easier to ignore emotions and treat your surroundings as just that-- surroundings. You could work faster when you ignored your emotions; you could be more efficient when you ignored your emotions.

Seto could be more efficient when he ignored his emotions. 

Your hand froze on the sketch pad and you blinked back into reality. When had _Messiah_ ended? When had _The Apostles_ begun? You took a moment to listen to the music and found you were already halfway through the first part. You gazed over your sketch and eyed a few more places that needed more shading, but you were just about done with it. You reached for a colored pencil in your art kit and started adding blue to the irises of his eyes. 

When you were finished coloring you looked up at Seto, who was still in the same position he had been for the past three and a half hours, and caught his blue eyes glimmering in the sunset. Golden light sparkled in the tips of his hair and flowed over his face, highlighting his cheekbones and bringing attention to his strong jawline. He looked gorgeous. 

You looked out the huge window behind him, which had been enveloped with pinks and oranges of the setting sun. The clouds reflected golden light around the tops of the buildings surrounding Kaiba Corporation and made the city seem almost surreal in its beauty. It reminded you of your first look at the city of Columbia in BioShock Infinite, the way the light captivated your gaze. You set your sketchbook to the side and turned your body to lean against the back of the chair you had pulled over to stare out the window. 

“ _You get to see this every day_?” You murmured in English, completely forgetting to switch to Japanese when you addressed him. You had seen a handful of sunsets in your time, but never from so high off the ground, towering over the rest of the city. Seto turned his head to look at you, then to the setting sun.

“Yes,” he replied in Japanese, unfazed by both your English and the beautiful colors outside of the window, “Are you done with your drawing?” 

“Almost,” you said softly, though admittedly hardly listening, “Just a few things to put in but you can move now.” 

Your eyes stayed locked on the window and the beautiful reds and yellows that bounced on the the windows of the buildings around Kaiba Corp. You heard Seto turn his chair around and glanced quickly to him to see he was now facing the window as well. 

“Have you never seen a sunset before?” He quipped. 

“Not like this,” you ignored his mocking tone, too enthralled by the view, “This is beautiful.” 

He scoffed beside you, “You’re such a simple girl.”

He did not move his chair back to face his work, crossing his arms over his chest and keeping a silent gaze on the window. A soft smile danced its way to your lips as the two of you watched the sun set over Domino city in silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I used to live in Germany when I was really little, and I have this really vivid memory of when we went to the Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria while there was some sort of festival going on. We climbed up to the very top of the castle a little before nighttime, and they started setting off fireworks. Since we were so high off the ground, we were actually above the fireworks they were setting off, so I got to see them from top-down. It was sooooo pretty. I was only like 2 at the time, I think, but I remember seeing them really clearly, it blew my mind. 
> 
> I kind of thought a similar principal would work with looking at a sunset from the top of a skyscraper. I know the sun doesn't exactly move that way so you wouldn't really be looking "down" at it, but you'd still be looking down on the other buildings and some of the clouds, so the way the light would bounce seems like it would be really pretty. 
> 
> Anyway, hopefully you guys enjoy this update! I know it's almost entirely fluff, but I tried to add a little more character development between the two with the whole family topic. Hopefully it feels substantial enough that it was worth the read (especially because the next chapter is also a good amount of fluff and set-up for a later chapter). 
> 
> Since I'll be at Katsucon this weekend, update probably won't happen on Saturday at the usual time (early/mid-day)? I'm either going to post it on Thursday night or try to remember to draft it and just post when I get back from the con late Saturday. My brain's kind of a hot mess right now with all the shit I have to get read and pack for my 4 costumes, so bear with me! And wish me luck that all my costumes make it there in one piece haha. 
> 
> If you're really itching for another update or just more Kaiba/reader goodness in general between now and the next chapter, I published a pure smut one-shot yesterday in time for Valentine's Day. You can find it on my profile, it's called Going Down. Very explicit. Basically pure porn. Adult audiences. Yada yada. But if you're into that kinda thing feel free to read it and drop a kudos if you enjoy it :)
> 
> THAT'S ENOUGH FROM ME SORRY FOR THE LONG NOTES, GO LIVE YOUR LIVES NOW.


	9. Happy Birthday, Mr. President

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is mainly dialogue. Lots of dialogue. I normally don't like writing a ton of dialogue but I had a lot of fun with this chapter honestly!

You had gone to Seto’s office straight after classes during a chilly October evening, and the two of you sat opposite each other on the couches in his office, your calculus work sprawled out across the table between you. You were in the midst of plotting over twenty points on a graph and analyzing them whilst Seto studied your previous work for accuracy, one of his long legs crossed over the other and he leaned back into the couch. 

Every time you glanced up it was more and more obvious to you how tired he was, and although you were worried about him you said nothing. Despite offering multiple times to take on more work for the project, Seto refused to give you any more than he had originally assigned, insisting he could handle it. 

“This stuff is going to be on our exam next week right?” You asked absently. 

“Yes.”

“Well it’s good practice then,” you muttered, “Then I don’t have to study. Not like I do anyway.”

“You don’t study?” He glanced up from the sheet of paper in front of him.

“Nah. I retain information pretty well, so I can be a solid A- student with basically no effort,” you shrugged to yourself, afraid you sounded like you were bragging.

“But if you studied you could get an A.” He stated, an annoyed edge to his voice. 

“Oh totally, but I’d rather do… well anything else honestly.”

“You don’t have a job, so what else would you possibly do?” He had stopped looking over your paper at this point and had a frown set on his lips. 

“Work on fashion stuff, play video games, watch Netflix. You know, usual college stuff.” 

“So you shirk your responsibilities to have fun?” He scoffed, “People like you irritate me.” 

“Yeah it’d probably irritate a lot of people,” you mumbled. Seto didn’t seem angry with you, but it was obvious he was looking down on you for your lack of work ethic. You couldn’t say you were surprised with the way he took work so seriously, to the point that he looked like he’d skipped sleep altogether last night. Again. 

“I just don’t really have the motivation for it, you know?” You began again, “Like, I could work really hard for an extra 4 points on an exam, but it just doesn’t seem worth it. What employer’s going to care about my grades when I’m an art major anyway?”

“Other people don’t matter, you should want to better yourself for yourself,” Seto returned his attention back to checking your work, obviously getting fed-up with the discussion. 

“I see it as smart time-management, personally. I could waste an hour studying for an extra few points or I could spend the hour doing something more enjoyable. I’m not motivated to do slightly better in school.” 

“It sounds to me like you’re just lazy,” he quipped. 

“Well, you’re not wrong,” you conceded, “But what about you? How long do you spend studying when you don’t even pay attention in class? I bet you could get some more sleep if you managed your time better.”

“I don’t study.”

“Wha-- wait a second! You can’t get annoyed with me for not studying when you don’t even study!”

He raised an eyebrow at you, “I don’t _need_ to study, I’m top of the class with a four-point-oh GPA. We can have this discussion again when you’re able to achieve that without studying.”

You pursed your lips in a pout and finished plotting your points just as he was done going through your earlier work, and the two of you swapped papers. You were satisfied to see not a single mark of red pen on the paper, and tucked it into the folder of finished work before moving on to your next problem. As you began to set-up the problem, a smirk danced onto your lips as an idea popped into your head.

“Hey Seto?”

He grunted in acknowledgement. 

“You wanna make a bet?”

“I don’t like that look on your face.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, bracing himself for whatever your stupid idea would be. 

“I bet I can get a higher grade on the calc exam next week than you. Care to wager?”

“Wager what?”

“If I win, you have to answer any one question I ask you. Honestly. No matter what it is.” The smirk on your face warped itself into a devilish grin.

Seto set the paper in his hands down on the table and eyed you with a steady glare. It was not his usual glare, rather, it looked like he had switched into business mode. His gaze was piercing and intimidating, and you immediately knew this was one of the many reasons he had earned his reputation as a ruthless tycoon. But you would not be swayed by a mere glare, you had dealt with his attitude for too long for a simple mean look to make you back down. 

“Absolutely not.” 

“Oh come on, give me some motivation!” You whined.

“You’re going to ask me something personal you know I don’t want to answer.” He stated flatly. 

“Well no shit that’s the point,” you rolled your eyes, and rested your cheek against your fist. “What if I promise it won’t be anything related to your family?”

He narrowed his eyes even further and searched your face, “Even if I agreed to this ridiculous bet, what would you have to offer me when I win?” 

“You can always ask me a question.” You had to hold back a scoff as his assumption that he would win.

“There’s nothing I want to know about you that I don’t already,” he twitted. “Not to mention, you’d answer any of my questions I ask regardless of a bet, that’s the kind of person you are.”

“You’re probably right about that,” you admitted, “Alright what do you want then?”

He leaned forward and looked you up and down, thinking of what he could ask of you if he won the little wager. If. 

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Don’t make me repeat myself,” he frowned and picked up the paper again, returning his attention to it, “You have nothing to offer me that I would want.” 

You bit back a groan in response to his stubbornness and tried to think of something he’d want. He was a wealthy, powerful, busy man who could buy anything he could ever want for, so the only thing you could give would be personal. Unfortunately, he was right that you would answer just about any question he asked; you weren’t exactly an open book about everything but you were honest when asked something.

He was a wealthy, powerful, busy man, but he was also easy to read. Though he tried his best to act like he was older than he really was, he was one of the most stubborn and sometimes immature people you had met. You felt the smirk returning to your face.

“I think you’re just saying that because you’re scared of losing the bet.” You said coolly. 

“You think you can taunt me into making a deal where I have nothing to gain?” He asked evenly, but you could tell he was keeping back an offended tone. 

“I think I can taunt you into a deal where you have your pride to lose if you don’t play along,” you replied, “Mister Top-of-the-Class. You’re afraid I’ll beat you.”

His eyes darted to meet yours and a scowl graced his features. 

“You know that isn’t true.”

“Do I?” You asked mock-coyly. 

“If I agree to your silly little bet will you shut up and get back to work?” He asked, annoyed and ready to return to work. 

“Absolutely,” you leaned forward and offered your hand to him. He clenched his jaw and glanced to it, begrudgingly taking it into a firm handshake and nearly crushing it. You winced and pulled away from him and caught a smug glint in his eyes. You would let him win the handshake battle, but you already had the question you would ask in your head when you got a better grade on the exam. 

You would win the war.

The two of you barely put a dent into your work when your next interruption came in. Just as Seto finished looking over your graph, Mokuba burst through the office doors dressed in a pair of well-fitting purple dress pants, a matching button-up shirt, and white suit jacket. His hair was still wild as ever, falling around his face in an untamable mess. His grey eyes darted between the two of you before a frown graced his usually happy features, and he crossed his arms over his chest.

“ _Nii-sama_ , you’re not dressed.”

You turned your body, propped your arm on the back of the couch to look at Mokuba, and whistled at him. “Lookin’ spiffy kiddo. Where you guys going?” 

“Well I thought we were going to _Nii-sama’s_ favorite restaurant, but it looks like he forgot.” Mokuba huffed. 

Seto set the graph he had been checking down on the table and crossed his arms to meet Mokuba’s posture, his face twisted in a mix of confusion and irritation. Mokuba sat himself down on the couch next to you, and the two of you watched Seto, waiting for him to remember whatever it was he was supposed to remember. Mokuba fidgeted next to you, growing impatient.

After a long silence between the three of you, a look of recognition crossed his eyes, and he frowned. He reached up to rub his temples with his long fingers, letting out a frustrated sigh, and you waited for one of the brothers to explain what was going on.

“ _Nii-sama_ I can’t believe you forgot your own birthday. Again.”

Your eyes widened, quickly glancing between the brothers, “Woah wait it’s your birthday?”

“Yes.” Seto muttered. 

“How old are you now? Twenty?”

“Yes.”

“How do you forget your own birthday? You didn’t look at the calendar and say ‘oh hey I was born on this day’?” You knew Seto could be dense, but you had never thought it was possible for anyone to be so distracted that they forget their birthday. 

Seto groaned and directed a glare up at you but said nothing, removing his fingers from the sides of his head and picking up a pencil to get back to work.

“Wait a second!” Mokuba dove across the table to make a grab for the pencil but Seto held it high above him with his long arms, “We still have reservations!”

“I have work to do.” Seto replied curtly. 

Part of you did not want to get involved in the brothers’ argument, but it was a very, _very_ small part. You were jumping at the opportunity to encourage the two of them to spend some time together, especially after essentially crashing the last weekend Mokuba was supposed to have Seto to himself.

“Seto, your brother’s right. It’s your birthday! You should go have fun.” You assured, leaning back against the sofa cushions and tapping a finger on the armrest. 

“I don’t have time for fun, I am the--”

“President and CEO of a multi-billion dollar corporation,” you finished in a mocking voice, causing him to shoot you a look of disdain. “Yes I’m aware, you remind me every chance you get. When’s the last time you had a break?”

“When we went to Kaiba Land,” Mokuba replied for him, brown knit together in frustration.

“Are you serious? That was over a month ago.” 

“How many times do I have to explain to you two that I do not have time for a break?” Seto was growing more annoyed the more you and Mokuba pestered him, and you saw Mokuba shrink away from his brother. But your stubbornness refused to let you give up, knowing full well he was exhausted and needed a break, consequences be damned. 

“How many times do I have to tell you working so long without a break is bad for your health? Not to mention it hurts your concentration and the quality of work you do; I could pull up a dozen sources on the subject right here right now.” 

“I don’t care.” He replied.

You crossed your own arms over your chest and straightened your back, “Not to mention, you’re worrying Mokuba-- no, both of us-- to death.” 

He held your stern gaze with a look that said he would not back down either, and the two of you had a lengthy staring contest of sorts. Mokuba looked between the two of you, unsure how to react. He was probably not used to anyone in such a determined argument with his big brother outside of the context of a children’s card game. Seto leaned forward and narrowed his eyebrows at you even further in a last ditch effort to get you to back down, but you merely raised an eyebrow at him. You had already had one of these contests tonight, and he knew you would not give up easily. Your knee bounced up and down from impatience, and you could see Seto’s finger tapping from equal restlessness. 

“You are insufferable.” He spat. 

“Hello Pot, I’m Kettle,” you replied, unfazed. 

“The longer you insist on prolonging this little staring contest of yours, the more of my time you waste. I could be working.”

“The longer you insist on being a stubborn workaholic, the less time you have to get ready for dinner with your brother,” you gestured to his mess of hair, “You could be fixing your bangs so you don’t look like you’re going through a scene phase.” 

“I’m not going.” Seto said bluntly, and your heart sank at the look of disappointment that spread across Mokuba’s face. 

“What work do you even have to do for the next hour and a half? I don’t think dinner will take you too long.” Last time you and Mokuba had dragged him out of the office he had quite the workload piled up for him, but he had scheduled the two of you to work on math for the next hour or so, so you couldn’t imagine there would be that much more for him to do when he returned.

“For starters,” Seto gestured to the mess of calculus sprawled in front of him, “All of this.”

“I’ll do it.” You said quickly. You had been offering for the past three weeks to take some of the calculus work off his plate anyway, and if it would get him and Mokuba to spend dinner together you were happy to take on more work. Not that you particularly wanted to do more than you were already assigned, but you didn’t have a job and had more free time than him, and especially tonight when you had nothing at all planned you were perfectly fine with some extra homework.

“I-- excuse me?” He raised an eyebrow at you.

“I’ll finish what we have scheduled for tonight. You go have birthday dinner and chill out for a couple hours.” You stretched your shoulders back a little so they popped, hoping he would back down soon so you could return to leaning on the comfy couch. 

“That’s ridiculous. I’m not going to push my work onto you so I can go ‘relax’.” 

“You’re not pushing, I’m taking.” You frowned, and reached over the table to grab the papers he had laid in front of him, pulling them into a pile next to your own calculus book instead. 

“No.”

You groaned, beginning to reach your limit with his stubbornness, “Alright how about this? I didn’t get you a gift, so will it make you feel better if I call this your birthday present?” 

He frowned, and Mokuba looked about as shocked at Seto probably felt. He turned to his older brother, a pleading look in his eyes, and you could see Seto’s resolve begin to crumble. You picked up your pencil and began reading over the next problem, estimating the amount of work you had just taken on would take at least an hour, not including your own questions you still needed to finish. 

Seto finally stood up, and Mokuba watched him intently to see what he would do. You scribbled down some work and punched numbers into your calculator between glances, waiting for him to give in and entertain his brother’s request for dinner. 

“Let’s go, Mokuba.” He begrudgingly said.

“Really?!” Mokuba shot up, his mood doing a complete one-eighty. You smiled as you and Seto watched him bound over to the office doors and practically throw them open, unable to contain his excitement. Seto sighed and shot you a glance that couldn’t decide between annoyance and appreciation, and you merely returned it with a playful wink. 

“Gonna get some steak and mushrooms again?” You teased. 

He shook his head at you and opened his mouth to respond as Mokuba ran back into the office, impatience all over his face. 

“ _Nii-sama_ come on!” He yelled, bouncing up and down from the massive burst of energy he had gotten. You chuckled to yourself and Seto began walking past you toward the exit. 

You lowered your voice and tried to sound as breathy as possible, hoping your reference wouldn’t go straight over his head, and whispered, “Happy birthday Mister President.” You didn’t look up from your math work to see his reaction, but you picked up on a barely-audible hum before he left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Katsucon is going well so far! Lots of photos have been taken ofrom my Ciri and Vulpix! :DDD
> 
> I'm so fucking tired though, wearing costumes for like 10 hours a day and then getting no sleep is killer. Don't stay in a party room, kids.


	10. Never Drink on an Empty Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHO'S READY FOR AN EMOTIONAL ROLLER COASTER? 
> 
> There won't be any end notes. I just want this one to sit with you guys.

You were lounging on your couch doing some reading for class, Dandelion curled up in a ball asleep on your lap. You loved having days off between classes, it made your move much more relaxing, and helped you get work done every day rather than putting it off til the weekend. You contemplated getting a job when you first arrived in Domino, but had decided to hold off until you saw how well your first semester went. You were fortunate to have gotten some scholarships from DU and through some exchange programs, and your grandparents had been putting money into a college fund for you since you were born, so as long as you stayed on budget you would be able to afford your apartment and the rest of school expenses during your first year without a job. You had put your parents in charge of sending you a monthly allowance so you weren’t tempted to blow all your money. 

In the midst of reading quite a lengthy paragraph on fashion forecasting, the sound of your phone ringing broke your concentration. You checked the caller ID, and grinned when it was your parents. You hadn’t talked to them for a while-- which was your own fault, you had been so caught up with school that you hadn’t called for a couple weeks now. 

“Hey! What’s going on?” You set your book upside down on the table to save your page and adjusted yourself so you could sink deeper into the couch, nuzzling your face into Dandelion.

“Honey?” Your dad’s voice was shaky, which you were not at all accustomed to. You could hear your aunts talking to your grandfather in the background.

“What’s going on? Why is everyone with you?” You and your parents lived pretty far from the rest of your family in America, about a seventeen hour drive, and you usually didn’t see them unless it was Christmas or summer break. The only reason your parents would have taken the trip down was to see your grandmother, who had been diagnosed with brain cancer around this time last year. Which meant--

“Honey, Grandma’s gone.” Your dad finally managed, “She passed a few minutes ago.”

“What? No no no, dad she was fine when I talked to her before I moved." You managed slowly, "She was fine....” You didn’t know much of the details, but you knew it was incurable, and that the doctors weren’t sure how long she had. But that was ridiculous, the last time you saw your grandmother was when she saw you off for Japan, she had come all the way up to help you pack your things and wave good-bye at the airport. Her speech had slowed down, sure, and she was more tired than usual, but nothing else was off about her. She had been fine. 

“Honey I know. She got worse this month, really quickly. The doctors said that they could give her some medicine to slow it down, but she would have been in a lot of pain. Your Grandma decided she didn’t want it.”

“She-- I just saw her.” You gripped at Dandelion and sunk deeper into the couch, unable to form any words. Through your dad’s silence you could hear your grandfather crying in the background, and your heart sank as the reality began to set in.

Your grandmother was the one who taught you how to sew, and encouraged you to start a new chapter in your life when she saw how unhappy you were in your last month of programming. She was always so supportive of what you wanted to do, encouraging you to be a strong woman and think for yourself. She was going to come to your graduation.

“Honey? Are you alright?” 

You glanced around the room, confirming your surroundings. Confirming this was not a dream. The sound of your mother crying in the background snapped you out of your thoughts, and your heart ached. Your mom and grandmother were closer than anyone, and what she and everyone else there was going through was nothing compared to your grief. 

“Yeah,” you finally managed, “I’ll be okay. Go take care of mom.” 

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah. I’ll call you guys later this week when there’s less going on, okay?”

The two of you said your good-byes, and hung up. You allowed the phone to drop from your hand onto the couch next to you and stared at the ceiling, unable to focus your gaze. You had to keep telling yourself this was real, that your grandmother would not be coming to graduation. That she would not be seeing any of the garments you made in your first semester, your first year, your first anything. Despite all of that, you couldn't will yourself to cry. Despite knowing you needed to cry to get everything off your chest, you couldn’t. Like you were still in shock. 

You picked up your phone and dialed the number without even thinking, your body moving on its own before you could really process what you were doing. In your state, you put yourself on auto-pilot, hardly taking the time to think of what to say or how to act. Half of you didn’t even expect a response, when you glanced at your phone the time read 4:32, which was still the middle of the work day. But the line clicked on, and without even waiting for a ‘hello’ you spoke.

“Wanna go drinking tonight?” 

There was a pause on the other end, then a long, frustrated sigh. You imagined him in the middle of work, probably writing emails or reading papers or dealing with stupid people (or all of the above) when you interrupted him. But you didn’t care, or rather, you didn’t really process any of it in your numbness. 

_“Are you serious?”_

“Very.”

_“It is the busiest time of the year for my company, do you honestly think I have time to chaperone you at a bar?”_ Seto’s voice was strained.

“I don’t.”

He didn’t speak for a while, as if your honest and short replies were throwing him off. Normally at this point you would have teased him, made fun of him-- no, normally you wouldn’t have called him with this request after telling him you’d try to be considerate of his busy situation. And yet, here you were, calling at 4:32 on a Tuesday in a shaken state asking him to go drinking with you of all the things. You heard him type something, probably whatever you had interrupted, but stayed on the line until he was done.

_“What happened?”_ He finally asked.

“My grandma died.” You replied before you could even think of the words, and as you spoke them your heart sank. “My grandma died,” you repeated to yourself in an almost whisper, as if confirming that what you said to him was true. 

You heard another person on Seto’s end, then the sound of him putting his hand over the phone and his muffled yell of a response. The distant conversation went on for another moment, before he returned the phone back to his ear.

_“I don’t have time.”_ He said to you, and you nodded though he could not see it.

“Okay.” 

_“Drink at home so you don’t embarrass yourself,”_ he ordered, his voice firm and full of an authority that he did not normally hold over you. 

“Okay,” you repeated. You rolled over on your side, carefully peeling Dandelion off your stomach, unable to form the words for an argument. 

_“I’m hanging up.”_ Seto sounded unnaturally uneasy, you guessed thrown off by your mood.The line clicked off, and you allowed your arm to dangle off the side of the couch, phone in hand, unable to muster up the strength to cry. 

 

You woke up a few hours later though you didn’t realize you had fallen asleep. The sun was gone from your windows and your arm was asleep from napping on it in an uncomfortable position. Ciri had wedged herself between your knees and the end of the love seat, and Dandelion was passed out on the floor under your television. You cursed your nap, as it was going to mess with your REM cycles, before remembering why you had grown so exhausted in the first place. You frowned, still feeling quite numb, and willed yourself off the couch to make yourself a cocktail.

You had only ever gotten drunk once at a campus party, and it was a bad time. You were a depressing drunk, didn’t like the feeling of being out-of-control of your body, and at the party you spent half the night crying. You were much more careful afterwards when you drank, only having enough to loosen your inhibitions, but figured now a good time to put the vodka in your home to use. The longer you went without crying, the more pressure you felt in your chest, and the heavier your legs felt each time you took a step. 

You fixed yourself a Moscow Mule in your single copper mug, a going-away present from one of your dorm mates when you told her you were leaving for Japan. You also grabbed yourself some cookies from your cabinet, drinking on an empty stomach tended to make you feel sick. You plopped yourself back on the couch and turned some music on to play through your speakers. The apartment was filled with the sweet sound of New Orleans swing, and you sipped away at your drink and allowed your mind to get lost in the rhythm. 

You were about three-quarters of the way through your drink when you heard a knock at the door. You groaned and turned the screen of your phone on to check the time, nearly eight. You pushed yourself off the couch and dragged yourself over to the door, letting out a sigh before you unlocked it and pulled it open to reveal a very disgruntled Seto Kaiba. You blinked a few times, eyebrow raised up at him, which he met with a frown.

“Are you going to let me in or not?” 

You shuffled to the side so he could enter, closing the door behind the two of you and locking it. The melodious sounds of Big Bad Voodoo Daddy were still filling your home, and your mood slightly brightened the moment Seto was inside. 

“You want a drink?” You asked. You didn’t bother asking why he was here, you already knew why, though you were admittedly shocked he had shown up with how busy he sounded on the phone. Though you would normally have felt bad for pulling him out of work, you were not feeling normal today. Nothing was normal today. You waltzed into the living room and picked up your mostly-empty copper mug to refill. 

“What do you have?” Seto eyed you, surprisingly accommodating despite his situation. The two of you headed into your kitchen and you opened the cabinet containing all your alcohol, gesturing to the few bottles on the shelf.

“Vodka, spiced rum, whiskey, and a myriad of sodas for cocktails.” You got a cocktail glass down from the shelf below and headed to the freezer to fill it with ice.

“Whiskey.”

You glanced up at him, “Just whiskey?” 

“Yes.”

You shrugged and opened the brand-new bottle, filling his glass to the brim. You filled your own mug again with the Moscow Mule mixture of ginger beer and vodka, dropping the half of a lime you used for juice in and giving it all a stir. You made your way back into the living room with Seto behind you in silence, and the two of you sat yourselves down on your loveseat. You took a long sip of your drink and breathed in deeply, focusing on the music still playing. 

You glanced over at Seto as he took a drink of his whiskey, he frowned at the taste and turned to you, “This is terrible. Is this the best you can afford?”

“You know, Raymond Chandler once said ‘There is no bad whiskey. There are only some whiskeys that aren’t as good as others’.” You replied.

“Who?”

“Raymond Chandler, wrote _The Long Goodbye_. I had to read it in high school,” you took a sip of your drink, “It was pretty good.”

“Regardless, he sounds like a fool.” Seto scoffed, but took another sip of his own drink despite his protests. 

“Anyway, I’m surprised you showed up. It sounded like you were busy,” you stifled a yawn, the alcohol beginning to make you tired.

“I am.” Seto responded, glancing at the speakers as the song changed, “I didn’t take you for a jazz person.”

“I love swing,” you offered him a tired smile, “it’s so happy and fun. My grandma used to listen to swing, so I grew up with it.” You looked into your mug of alcohol and the smile faded from your face, replaced with clouded eyes.

“Are you planning to cry?” Seto asked, a harshness in his voice. He had at this point mostly finished his glass of whiskey, he drank much faster than you did. 

You shrugged, “Why?”

“I hate-" he clamped his mouth closed to cut himself off, "I don’t do well with crying.” He corrected, setting his nearly-empty glass on your coffee table and propping his elbow on the arm of the love seat. He leaned his face into his hand and pinched at the bridge of his nose. He looked exhausted now that you allowed your eyes to rest on him long enough, the bags under his eyes full and dark, his shoulders slumped. You wouldn’t describe his current appearance as ‘weak’ by any stretch, he did an excellent job of hiding his lack of sleep when he was being watched, but he certainly looked worse for wear. 

“Well I don’t make any guarantees,” you mumbled, “But if I do start crying you can leave if you get uncomfortable.”

“That would make me an asshole.” He sighed. 

This was probably the most unguarded you’d ever seen the man, you wondered if it had to do with the alcohol but doubted he’d had nearly enough for it to be the only reason. You allowed yourself to fantasize that he was merely comfortable enough with you, but although you thought yourself close to him, you couldn’t imagine he felt the same way after only knowing you for a few months. When he noticed you staring at him, he picked his head up and glared at you through a mess of bangs.

“You want another drink?” You offered, and got up to pour him another glass without waiting for a response. Judging by his body language and the enormous stress he was under, you saw no reason he’d turn it down free alcohol. You dumped the leftover contents out and refilled the glass with fresh ice and whiskey, returning to the living room and sitting yourself closer to him than you had been before without even thinking about it. 

You handed him the glass, and either he didn’t notice your new closeness or didn’t care. He wordlessly took the whiskey from your hand, his fingers brushing yours ever-so-slightly, and you felt yourself shiver. You were very aware of his presence, every time you thought of him, talked to him, sat next to him, your feelings became more and more clear to you. Eventually you’d have to admit to yourself that you didn’t just desire him physically. You constantly wanted to be around him and have conversations with him. You wanted him to feel the same way.

“My grandma would have liked you,” you said without thinking, and the second the words left your lips you wondered where they came from. “I mean… I guess she liked everyone, she was really nice.” You took your Moscow Mule into your hands and finished off the last few sips. 

“Was she?” Seto hummed, though he didn’t seem like he was really listening as he swallowed some more whiskey. By this time, your swing playlist had ended, and silence replaced the music in the room.

“Yeah. She’s the one who got me into sewing,” you set the empty mug down on the table in front of you and brought your knees to your chest, burying your bare feet between the sofa cushions, “She was really supportive of me moving here, she was going to come visit for my graduation.” You bit your lip, feeling heat bubble in your chest and your vision blur and the newfound wetness in your eyes, “She promised….” 

You didn’t know when you started crying, but for a moment everything around you stopped. Everything around you disappeared apart from the hot tears on your cheeks. Images of your grandmother, memories of the two of you spending time together, the happiness on her face when you told her you were going to study fashion design. You brought your fingers to your cheek to wipe away the tears, but more kept coming. 

Seto’s hand was on your back, moving awkwardly in circles, trying to comfort you. You weren’t quite sobbing, but tears continued to flow with no sign of stopping, and your breathing was uneven. You felt so tired. Under normal circumstances you would feel embarrassed, laying your emotions out so plainly for Seto, but you could hardly process anything as you cried. Not to mention, with the alcohol in your system, all your normal reservations were gone.

You could feel the exhaustion gripping at your mind, the situation mixed with the depressant in your system and you could hardly focus on anything. Your mind flickered between thoughts of your grandmother and the feeling of Seto’s hand rubbing your back. It was so relaxing, making your mind even sleepier, your body even heavier. Barely thinking and unable to hold your body up any longer under the weight of your emotions, you fell to the side, gently leaning against Seto’s warm body. 

Immediately you felt his muscles tense and his hand stopped moving, though it stayed on your back. You expected him to kick you off, to tell you to move, even to get up and walk out of your house, but he did none of those things. After a moment, he slowly began to relax, and you could feel his body soften under you. You heard him take a sip of his whiskey through your soft crying, and though his hand did not continue to rub circles on your back, his fingers twitched against your spine.

“Do you think she would be proud of me?” You whimpered, barely audible through tears. You felt bad for getting his shirt wet, and wondered if your tears were soaking through enough to make him uncomfortable. You hated the feeling of wet clothes yourself. For a while, Seto said nothing, allowing you to get most of your crying out before he finally responded. 

“Of course she would.” 

Your heart fluttered despite the fact that he spoke matter-of-factly, with no emotion behind his words. Or maybe it was because he said it as if it were fact you found it so reassuring. It was as if you couldn’t dispute that she was proud of you. 

“Thank you,” you managed, adjusting your neck so your face was burrowed just below his collarbone. Seto smelled nice, the scent of whiskey mixed with a musky soap. His body was warm and comfortable, and you couldn’t will yourself to move off of him even though you were done crying. You let the even rise and fall of his chest and the sound of his soft breathing lull you into sleep.


	11. Breakfast in "Bed"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a direct continuation of the last chapter. It's shorter but I think it's important, and I don't want the feelings to overstay their welcome. The chapter's very fluffy, which is kind of a given after the last chapter, but I think it's necessary fluff. I hope it doesn't seem too out-of-character for Kaiba, I tried to keep him as grumpy as he always is but softer in response to what the Reader went through last night. The guy may be an asshole, but I like to think after years of taking care of Mokuba he probably knows when to tone down the attitude. Especially when it comes to family.

It was warm, so very warm. Your shoulders ached, and you felt your body contorted in a very uncomfortable way. This was not your bed. Your bleary eyes blinked opened slowly, and memories of last night flooded into you as you gazed at his collarbones through his skin-tight black turtleneck shirt. Your hand was rested lightly on his chest, fingertips just touching the Duel Monsters locket he always wore. Your forehead was resting against his warm neck, and your knees were propped up against his own leg, feet still buried between the couch cushions.

You took a moment to remember exactly how you ended up here, recalling the alcohol you two shared, you falling onto his chest as you cried, his hand on your back comforting you. It was still there. His long fingers draped lazily on your shoulder, arm around you, cradling you against his chest. You were surprised he had let you sleep on him like this. His breathing was deep and even, and you wondered when last night he had fallen asleep himself. Every time he exhaled, the barely lingering smell of whiskey wafted over you, muddled with his own scent. You could see light just barely shafting into your living room through your window; it couldn’t have been later than six or so. You slowly, careful not to wake him, adjusted your head to get a better look. His other arm hung over the armrest, one of his ankles crossed over his leg that supported your knees. His head was tilted away from you, leaning back against a pillow he had propped up in the corner of the love seat.

The light peeking through the blinds in your living room fell across his face, and you found yourself smiling tiredly at his innocent expression. His lips were slightly parted and his bangs framed his face in a tousled mess. He looked so peaceful while he slept, despite the fact that his current position couldn’t be any more comfortable than yours. Your back was killing you, and your bottom leg was asleep. You wanted to get up and stretch, but you were still sleepy from the alcohol, and despite your position and leaning on Seto’s bony body, you didn’t want to get up from him. He was warm and his arm draped on your shoulders made you feel safe. Plus, you wanted him to get some sleep, though you knew you’d probably get an earful for not waking him up earlier, you knew how much the young CEO needed the rest. You set your head back on his chest and closed your eyes, letting sleep overtake you again. 

The next time you awoke it was from being jostled by Seto. He gently shook your shoulders and you sighed, yawning and willing yourself awake. The sun’s light filled your living room, and you allowed yourself another moment against his chest, moving your face into the crook of his neck to pop your shoulder. 

“What time is it?” You mumbled, reaching a hand up to rub your eyes before looking up at him. The bags underneath his eyes were all but gone, but his dark circles persisted. 

“Seven-thirty.” He groaned. Though he didn’t sound as tired as he had for the past month and a half, he was still equally grumpy. The way he glared at the time on his phone made you assume this was later than he would normally wake up. It was later than you did too, at least on school mornings.

“Sorry for falling asleep on you.” You gingerly pushed yourself off him, stretching and cracking your body. He did the same, though he looked much more elegant than you did. 

“It’s fine.” He said curtly, stifling a yawn of his own. His deep sapphire eyes sparkled in the morning light that shafted through the blinds, and the light danced on his lips that were beginning to show signs of chapping. After a moment of stretching yourselves on the couch you both stood up.

“You want some coffee?” You offered, leading the way to your kitchen and he followed with a grumble. You glanced behind you as you began preparing the pot for delicious caffeine to see him checking emails on his phone and frowning. 

“Work?”

“Yes.”

“You wanna use my shower?” You gestured in the direction of your bathroom, “You can use my shampoo and stuff, I keep a spare toothbrush in the cabinet under the sink. I’ll make breakfast.”

He watched you scoop in two extra spoonfuls of coffee grounds than you usually did, turn on the coffee maker, then move to the fridge to find something to whip up for breakfast. You pulled out a carton of milk, a few eggs, and some butter, then carted them over to your counter. You reached up to the cabinet to pull out some flour and baking soda. 

“Waffles good with you?”

“Fine.” He replied, turning his back on you and heading to your bathroom. You smiled to yourself and set to work to making a simple waffle batter, turning on the iron you brought from home. You heard the shower turn on through the thin walls of your apartment, and hummed a little ditty as you cooked. You pulled out some frozen blueberries and set them on the stove with some sugar to make a syrup, and waited a little while before setting a skillet of scrambled eggs next to it. 

By the time you were moving all the food onto plates for the two of you, you heard the water shut off. You moved to pour yourselves some coffee, adding a liberal amount of milk and sugar to yours.You did not have a table in your small apartment aside from the coffee table in the living room, so you moved all the food into there. 

You had just finished pulling some silverware out of the drawer and entered the hallway when you heard Seto exit the bathroom, and you turned your head to look at him. He was wearing the same black turtleneck and pants from last night, but his coat was in his hand, revealing the natural shape of his shoulders to you for the first time in-person. They were broad, but not broad enough to look out of place on his slim figure. On the contrary, they fit the rest of his body perfectly, and you confirmed your hypothesis that he looked even better without them ridiculously padded. His hair was still damp, water dripping from his long bangs he had pulled away from his face. 

_Fuck he was hot._

“Was there enough hot water?” You asked, allowing your eyes to linger on how his turtleneck stuck against his damp chest to outline his muscles more than usual.

“Yes.” He replied.

You had to tear your eyes away from him before he noticed you staring, and moved over to the sofa to sit down and drop the silverware on the coffee table. You picked up your own plate as he sat down next to you, and you took a bite of your scrambled eggs. Seto furrowed his brow slightly at the food in front of him, eyes moving between the eggs and the waffle covered in blueberry syrup.

“You didn’t need to make this much.” He muttered, picking up his mug of coffee and taking a few long sips.

“Nah I like cooking,” you smiled, “It’s the cleaning up that I don’t enjoy.” You took a bite of your waffles and blueberries and mentally patted yourself on the back. It was delicious. 

Seto merely grunted and began eating from his own plate. You realized you had forgotten to ask how he liked his eggs, and hoped he was alright with them scrambled. Between bites you stole glances of him, watching the droplets of water fall from his unstyled hair, the muscles of his arms flex as he brought forkfuls of food to his mouth, how his lips wrapped around the lip of the cup as he sipped his coffee. You had to keep reminding yourself not to look for too long otherwise he might notice.

You could smell the faintest hint of raspberries from him, and grinned to yourself. He must have used your berry body wash, which seemed much too feminine for him, especially considering last night he had smelled so musky. You wondered if anyone would notice when he got to work, if he was going straight from your apartment.

“Can I ask you something?” you mumbled between bites.

He glanced over to you but said nothing. 

“Why did you come over?” You asked, “I mean since you were so busy and… I don’t know, it just doesn’t seem like something big enough for you to worry about.” You picked up your mug of coffee and frowned into it before taking a sip.

“Obviously I came to make sure you were drinking at home and didn’t make a fool of yourself.” He said coolly. 

You blinked a few times to process what he had just said, before setting your mug down and taking an awkward bite of your eggs. You avoided eye contact with him and tried to focus on the food in front of you rather than his words, more confused than upset with them. The two of you sat in an uncomfortable silence for a while, only the sound of silverware against your plates filling the air before he cleared his throat and broke the quiet between you. 

“Family is important,” he said, his voice softened considerably, “I thought you should have someone here considering….” He trailed off, and when you turned your face up to study his features he was looking away from you with a frown etched onto his lips. He looked like he was remembering something. 

“You didn’t,” you mumbled sadly as the realization washed over you. “You didn’t have anyone like that.” It was not a question, rather you felt like you were stating the obvious once you put two and two together. You didn’t want to assume but it wasn’t hard to infer why that hint of sadness was buried in his voice, why he sounded like he spoke from experience. Seto and Mokuba were orphans after all, and if you were right with your assumption, it explained a lot about him. 

“I’m sorry,” you said, but left it at that.

He made a little hum in response as he finished off his breakfast and chugged the last of his coffee. You rushed to finish your own food and got up to help bring the dishes to your kitchen. You tossed them, along with the other bowls and pans you had used to prepare the food, into the sink and shrugged them off to do later. 

“You want the last of the coffee?” You offered, trying to push all the depressing thoughts to the back of your mind. 

Seto shook his head, “I need to get to work.” He replied, heading back to the living room to pick up his white trench coat. You stretched your hands over your head and popped your spine, following him to your front door as he slipped his shoes on. 

“Hey, Seto.”

He paused with his hand outstretched to the door, turning his head just enough to meet your gaze with his sapphire blue eyes. His hair was still a mess and his coat was slung over his shoulder. Despite his dark circles he looked more refreshed than you’d seen him in months, and you silently praised yourself for letting him sleep in. 

“Thank you. For coming over, and for… you know, putting up with me last night,” you smiled up at him, feeling your heart flutter as you imagined yourself back in his comforting grasp. You again admitted to yourself that these feelings had gone far past purely physical, but you tried your best to hide it from your face. 

“Forget it.” He said impassively.

“I won’t,” you replied fondly, folding your hands behind your back. You weren’t sure if he meant ‘forget it’ in a casual or a serious way, but regardless you would absolutely not forget the kindness he had showed you. He did not have to push work aside to sit with a tipsy, crying you last night. He did not need to allow you to sleep on his chest or cradle you in his protective grasp, especially since you were positive he would never consider it under normal circumstances. Despite his incredibly busy schedule he had shoved his responsibilities aside and offered you more comfort than many of your long-time friends in the States might have, and honestly it meant the world to you.

For a moment he looked as if he wasn’t sure how to react to you. Your response was more affectionate than you normally showed him, but still firm and unwavering. He sighed, resting his hand on the doorknob and turning his body slightly more to face you, eyes searching your face for a moment, before you saw his fingers twitch. He nodded at you in reply before turning the knob and opening the door, letting himself out. You went to the door and peeked out to watched his tall figure until it disappeared down the stairs, before heading back inside to do the dishes before they started to pile up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think my teeth may rot out of my head if this sweetness keeps up. Don't you worry, though, normal Reader/Kaiba interactions will continue next chapter. Maybe with some added fluff and building anxiety as she figures out her feelings. Oh, don't you worry, it's building up to something! Ohohoho~
> 
> In case you were wondering how my life is going right now: you may be thinking now that Katsucon is over I have lots more time to work on school and writing and stuff. YOU'RE WRONG! The PAX East crunch has begun. I'm making armor for my Blue Eyes costume. I just bought a 3D printer for my Tracer guns. I need to wire LEDs. I need to make wings for Blue Eyes??? I've never made wings before idk what I'm doing. MY LIFE IS A MESS. 
> 
> On the bright side, Duel Links is a welcome distraction from my Portfolio due dates and the PAX crunch, so if you wanna add me on there you totally should. My ID is 795-581-807.
> 
> Hope you guys enjoyed this update. Let me know what you thought of it! My self-worth is determined by likes and comments so help a brotha out won't ya? ;)  
> See y'all in the next chapter!


	12. Perpendicular

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've passed 30k words already holy crap!!!

You found yourself in the morning with a brilliant-- or potentially stupid-- idea. In one week, the sophomores (second years, you kept reminding yourself) would be signing up for classes for next semester, and that included you and Seto. You already knew four of the five classes you wanted to take, they were sewing and design labs that were pre-requisites you needed to get out of the way for higher level classes. You didn’t have any more gen-eds that you needed to take since you transferred quite a few in from your previous school and from AP classes so there was no need to take any of those. That left a math course for your minor, you wanted to take one each semester so you could be more free senior year. 

You were in the middle of trying to get your left wing of eyeliner to match the right, a constant struggle, when the idea popped into your head. Since Seto was a mathematics major, he probably had a ton of options for classes to take next semester. If you asked nice enough, maybe he would be willing to sign up for one with you so you didn’t have to be alone in every class. 

Admittedly, you hadn’t made much of an effort to befriend anyone other than him at Domino University. In fact, other than him and Mokuba, you really had no friend in Japan to speak of. Though the girls (and two guys) in your year in fashion design seemed nice enough, they pretty much all had groups of friends already. You’d never been great at making new friends, and had an especially hard time trying to weave your way into an already existing group. 

As you put your highlight on your cheekbones, you wondered if that was why it was so easy for you to befriend Seto. He had no other friends at the school, at least none that you knew of, and somehow the fact that he was unapproachable motivated you. It was like a challenge to get him to accept you as a friend, a challenge you weren’t even sure you had passed yet. After falling asleep on him a week prior, the two of you hadn’t brought it up again. He treated you the same, and you tried even harder not to make it obvious you had developed feelings for him. You liked to think he saw you as a friend, Seto Kaiba was not the kind of person to put up with shit like people falling asleep on him if he didn’t see them as a friend. At least, that’s what you had kept telling yourself. 

You put a coat of pink lip gloss onto your lips and took stock of yourself in the mirror. Your hair was kind of a mess, so you pulled it back with a headband so you didn’t look like a slob, but also not like you were trying too hard. As you picked out an outfit for the day you ran through the best ways to go about asking Seto if he’d take another class with you. You’d never asked someone to take a class with you before, usually you signed up for whatever you wanted to take and if you happened to know someone in the class, hooray. 

Plus, Seto would probably think it was a stupid request. Actually, he probably had his schedule all planned already. You frowned as you put on your shoes and exited your apartment, running through the things he could say to you. In a perfect world, he would accept your request and you’d take a class together, but you were sure he’d put up some kind of a fight, or at the very least call you an idiot for the idea. At the worst, he’d refuse, and tell you he didn’t actually see you as a friend. You didn’t exactly believe he would do that, but some part of you was still scared. 

You stewed on the thought on your way to the University, assuring yourself that it would be fine. He might laugh at you for the idea, or tell you it was stupid, but it’s not like you weren’t used to it. You cursed your anxiety, you had never had someone make you feel so anxious before, especially over a matter so trivial. You wondered if you were more nervous now because you’d admitted your feelings for him to yourself. 

By the time you entered the building and made our way up the stairs, you had calmed your fears enough for excitement to overpower them. If he did agree to take a class with you, that meant he had a reason to hang out with you again next semester. And the idea of you two spending more time together made your heart flutter. 

As you entered the classroom, you had pushed your fear all the way down and allowed your bag to fall onto the table with a loud thud and slid into your seat next to Seto with a grin on your face. He barely looked up from his work at the noise, a sigh escaping his lips when he noticed your smile. 

“What?”

“Hey Seto, you would consider us friends right?” You turned your chair to face him and leaned against the table.

He raised an eyebrow in your direction, finishing an email he had been typing while you waited patiently. You had gotten into class earlier than usual, and there were very few students in the classroom aside from the two of you. Other than the clicking of his keyboard, the room was silent. Eventually, he finished his email and his ‘send’ before swiveling his chair to face you, fingers laced together and chin propped up on them.

“What are you going on about?”

“Well, I consider us friends,” you began, accepting that you would not be getting an answer from the man and turning to your bag to dig out some paper, “And if you feel the same I was thinking we should take another class together next semester!” 

Seto’s eyebrows knit together while you pulled out a paper you had been jotting schedule plans on for the next semester, a list of mathematics electives you still needed for your minor scribbled all over the place. It was not at all organized. 

“Why?”

“Well I mean I’m a math minor so I need some more math classes anyway, I figured you probably have something you need to take--”

“No,” he interrupted, “I mean why with me?”

You cocked your head toward him, a bit confused by the question. “Because I enjoy spending time with you? I’m having fun in this class sitting next to you, I thought it would be fun to do it again next semester.”

“You know we probably won’t have another group project in a math class,” he said coolly. 

“Yeah that’s fine.”

“And we hardly talk in class.” 

You nodded, curious if he was trying to tell you he didn’t want to take a class with you or if he was just trying to figure out if you had some sort of ulterior motives. He frowned at your raised eyebrow and seemingly flippant attitude. 

“Seto I just want to take another class with you because I enjoy your company.”

“Don’t you have other friends you could sign up with?”

“Nope,” you grinned sardonically, “And even if I did, it wouldn’t change the fact that I want to take something with you.” 

He clicked his tongue and turned his chair back to his laptop when a new email popped up in his inbox. You waited patiently for him to say something to you while you pulled out your phone to look at the times for the math classes being offered. The two of you were in the same grade, so you’d be signing up for classes at the same time. You typically signed up right when your block opened up, and you assumed with his work ethic Seto would be equally punctual, so you weren’t worried you would end up in the class all alone if he agreed. 

“What do you need to take?” He finally muttered. 

“Uh,” you were a bit surprised he was actually going along with your request, “Basically anything. All I need are electives so I can choose about whatever I want unless it’s too high level.”

“Discrete Mathematics?”

You frowned, “I transferred that in. What about Theory of Probability?”

“Already took it.”

You searched the classes you jotted down again, “Uh, Numerical Analysis?” 

“Won’t fit in my schedule. Stability Theory?”

“Sounds boring,” you wrinkled your nose.

The two of you fell into silence as the professor walked into the room and started class. Seto returned his attention to his work and you glanced at the remaining math classes between jotting notes down. Most of the classes you scrolled through fell on the same time as the sewing classes you needed to take. You glanced up at Seto from the corner of your eye when you heard his typing get more aggressive, seeing frustration painted all over his face. You wondered if there was some more shit going down at Kaiba Corporation by the way his shoulders were tensed and his fingers flew across the keys. 

You glanced back to your phone and noticed a class that would fit into your schedule, waiting for the professor’s back to be turned to the class before you leaned closer to Seto. “What about Applied Differential Equations?” You whispered. 

“Which level?” He mumbled back with annoyance clear in his voice, eyes still focused on his work.

“One,” you replied in a hushed voice, your hand still copying the problem on the board, inching your notebook over a little so you wouldn’t have to move away from him until he answered. 

He opened his mouth, probably to say no, but then switched over to a spreadsheet where he had a much neater schedule than yours laid out. He scanned the schedule, then the time for the class, and nodded at you. 

“Fine.”

“Really?” You had to be careful not to say it too loudly, a smile spreading across your face.

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, all he could do to keep himself from telling you to shut up and let him work. Your eyes darted back to your tentative schedule as you added in the class blocks, feeling positively giddy. You hadn’t been totally confident he would agree to taking a class with you, and if he didn’t you weren’t sure he’d have any reason to continue talking to you. 

But those fears were all but obliterated now. You had basically confirmed to yourself that he considered you a friend, or at least a close acquaintance, even if he wouldn’t admit it. There was no reason he’d agree to sign up with you if not. The thought made your smile grow even wider. 

“What are you smiling about?” Seto mumbled finger tapping lightly next to a trackpad. The email on his screen had been replaced with some sort of sales report.

“You.” You whispered back playfully. 

“Idiot.” He shook his head and rolled his eyes, and you went back to copying notes from the board.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the later than usual update, I just got home from taking my cat to the vet. He has to stay overnight for x-rays and an enema. Hopefully he is all better once they're done and he can come home and snuggle with me lots and lots <3 
> 
> On a brighter note, my boyfriend got me a 3D printer for my birthday (which is on Thursday yayyyyyy~) and it's currently printing out parts for my Tracer guns for PAX. It's been a challenge learning how to get all the cuts and everything right but it's super cool so far. Although, it's right next to my computer so all I smell now is burning plastic. If I didn't already have cancer from worbla heating, insulation foam sanding, and spray paint inhalation, I sure do have cancer now. 
> 
> On the topic of my birthday, I'm considering posting an extra chapter of this story on Thursday. You guys should wish me a happy birthday to put me in a giving mood ;)
> 
> But as usual, hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! I know it was kinda short but I didn't wanna just add stuff for the sake of adding stuff. Lemme know your thoughts in the comments <3


	13. The Bet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last two chapters were shorter so I'm making up for it with 4.5k words on this one. #VaryingChapterLengthsFTW
> 
> Mokuba's the real MVP in this one, if for no other reason than because he isn't a dense motherfucker like a certain big brother.

Having your own temporary visitor’s pass in Kaiba Corp had significant perks that you didn’t often use to the fullest extent. Generally, when you and Seto were going to work on the calculus project, you either left for his office together after school or you arrived when he had scheduled you to so he already knew you’d be coming. But today, you were in the elevator on your way up to his office with a smug grin etched into your face, completely unannounced.

You had gotten your last exam grades back in class and the arrogant CEO had been uncharacteristically absent the entire morning. His workload had begun winding down steadily over the past few days with most of the holiday work coming to a close. The company had sent out early access codes for their holiday game releases to reviewers, and all promotion and marketing had just been approved or had begun running already. So, it was surprising to you that of all times, he had been absent today. 

Regardless of his reasons, you would not allow him to weasel his way out of your bet. You were confident you had beaten his score, and intended to collect on your reward. The elevator doors opened to the top floor and you sauntered out and toward his secretary. You now knew her name was Aiko, and though the two of you hardly ever spoke, she was nice enough to you and you were nice enough to her. 

“Is His Highness in his office?” You pointed to the closed double doors that lead into Seto’s domain. 

“Yes, he’s busy though,” Aiko glanced up at you, then chuckled to herself, “I suppose he’s always busy.”

“Truer words,” you agreed, “I’ve got a deal to settle with him. Strictly business, of course.” 

“Right,” she raised an eyebrow and gestured to the doors, “Well he’s not in a meeting but if you interrupt his work, you’re on your own.” 

You sent a mock-salute her way and turned on your heels, pulling your exam from your bag as you knocked on his door. You listened closely for his usual grunt of permission before puffing out your chest and opening the door, entering his office with the grin still plastered all over you. Seto didn’t look up from the work in front of him, a mess of papers scattered all over his desk and both his laptop and desktop monitors lit up next to them.

“Hey!” Mokuba lept up from the couch in front of the desk and grinned up at you, abandoning what looked like his astronomy homework on the coffee table in favor of catching you in a short, friendly hug. You obliged, and tousled his voluminous hair playfully. 

“What are you doing here?” Seto groaned. 

“I’ve come to collect!” You announced, walking past the younger brother and to the desk, dramatically slamming your exam down in front of him while purposely covering the final grade with the palm of your hand. 

“Excuse me?” His face snapped up to meet your gaze, clear irritation dancing in his eyes. Your grin only widened, if he was going to be upset at you for distracting him at work, he should have shown up to class to settle the bet there. You leaned your face in closer, one eyebrow raised to challenge his tone. You were getting way too into this. 

“I win,” you lowered your voice and stage whispered. You pushed yourself off his desk, picking your palm off the paper to reveal a 100 in bright red marker. You crossed your arms over your chest in triumph as he looked down at the exam, his own eyebrow now raised.

“Wow. Impressive.” He replied sarcastically. 

“No need to be bitter darling,” you teased, “But a deal’s a deal, and I have quite the burning question to ask you.” 

“And you’re so sure you’ve won this bet?” Seto scoffed at you. 

“Well there was no extra credit on this exam, so a perfect score is as good as it gets. I’m quite confident, yes,” you sat yourself in one of the chairs in front of his desk. 

Seto hummed at your response, then reached down behind his desk to dig something out. You eyed him intently as he pulled out some paper from a folder, then brought it onto the desk next to your exam. You blinked in surprise at the 100 written on his own exam, and tried to process how the bet would end since you had tied. Mokuba had since made his way next to you, eyes wide as he stared at the scores in the desk.

“I’m afraid,” Seto began, lacing his fingers together in front of his lips to hide an obviously smug smirk of his own, “That the deal was I would answer one of your idiotic questions if you _beat_ my score. You did not, so I will not be entertaining your whims today.” 

“Wha-” you furrowed your brow as you looked between the papers again, “But you got a hundred, with no extra credit there was no way for me to beat that.” 

“Exactly.” 

“But I got a hundred too!” You protested, “That has to count for something!” 

“No need to be bitter, _darling_ ,” Seto shot back at you mockingly, and the way he slowly said darling made it seem like an almost alien word, one he had never used before. Though it was entirely sarcastic, you briefly wondered if you were the first and only person he had ever called darling, a thought which you probably would have found both flattering and hilarious if you weren’t so put out over losing the bet. Mokuba, however, couldn’t suppress his giggles as you tightened your arms on your chest and huffed. 

“Well, if nothing else, at least this proves studying is useless,” you said sardonically and nodded to yourself, then turned your head to look at Mokuba, “Ya hear that kiddo? Hard work gets you nowhere.” 

“Does that mean I can stop doing my astronomy homework?” He grinned back to you.

“That is not what that means,” Seto said sternly to his brother, then snapped his eyes to you, “Don’t encourage bad behavior.” 

You pouted and reached over the desk to slide your exam toward yourself, now feeling much less proud of your perfect score. You slipped it into your bag and Seto did the same with his own exam, the smugness practically radiating off of him. 

“What was this bet about anyway?” Mokuba asked as he made his way back to the couch to continue his homework. 

“I bet that I could beat your brother’s score on our math exam, and if I won he had to answer one question I asked him no matter what it was,” you groaned, “It was gonna be so good too.”

“What were you going to ask?” Mokuba inquired. 

“Well it doesn’t really matter now,” you shrugged at the younger brother, then glanced up at Seto to catch just the faintest hint of curiosity in his deep blue eyes. 

“Oh come on,” Mokuba whined, “Now I’m curious!”

You chuckled and turned your body entirely to face Mokuba, a bit too embarrassed to look at the elder brother while you admitted your question. Now that you hadn’t won the bet, you had second thoughts itching in the back of your head as you wondered if your question was stupid or not.

“Fine fine,” you waved your hand at Mokuba, who was eagerly awaiting your question. “I was just going to ask why your brother puts up with me.”

“Really? Of all the things, you choose a question with the most blatantly obvious answer?” Seto muttered behind you, and your cocked your head slightly to glance over your shoulder at him. “Have you forgotten about our group project that I am required to work with you on?”

Though you knew he was just telling the truth in the most blunt way possible, you still felt a little sting at the way he made it sound like he was being forced to deal with you. Which he was, essentially, but it still kind of hurt to hear him say it that way. 

“Well sure,” you muttered, trying to keep the twinge of hurt from your voice, but when you glanced at Mokuba you could see he had picked up on it. “But I mean you weren’t required to be nice to me or anything.” 

“When have I been particularly nice to you?” Seto asked, his voice just as cold as ever, which you took to mean he had either not noticed your tone of voice or just didn’t care. Mokuba furrowed his brow and you turned your head completely to face him so Seto could not see you roll your eyes. 

“Oh I dunno, how about when you let me draw you for my studio art? Or when you signed up for a class with me? Or two weeks ago when my grandma--”

“Those are all fairly recent incidents and the reasons for me being accommodating to them should be obvious. You are less of a pain to deal with when you’re in a good mood, and you don’t leave me alone until I agree to put up with you.”

“ _Nii-sama_ why do you have to be so mean about it?” Mokuba frowned, “Can’t you just admit you’re nice to her because you guys are friends?” 

“That is--” Seto began, but he was interrupted by the phone next to him ringing loudly. You and Mokuba turned your heads to watch him pick up the phone, demand who was calling, then switch effortlessly into his icy business personality. He addressed the caller in English, and it sounded like the person on the other end was from the KC America branch. Seto began talking business in your native language effortlessly, barely an accent on most of his words.

You got up from your chair and headed toward the couch Mokuba was working on, figuring Seto’s conversation would be taking a while. You took a seat next to the younger brother and glanced over his homework, confirming your suspicions that it was, in fact, astronomy. It looked like he was having a difficult time with it, all his short-answers were mostly bull-shitted or completely wrong, and a handful of the multiple choice he had done seemed like blind guesses.

“Want some help kiddo?” You asked.

“Have you taken astronomy?” He asked, frowning at the work in front of him. 

“I took AP physics my senior year of high school and we did a unit on astronomy,” you shrugged, “so I can help with some if it.” 

He slid over a page of his assignment and you picked it up, leaning back in the couch to read over the questions. You didn’t know all of the answers, but you knew many of them, and figured you could lead Mokuba to the right answer with some work. You had done some tutoring your freshman year of college, so you were happy to help the little scamp. 

You glanced over to Seto at the sound of his finger tapping on the desk, a frustrated frown on his face. He did a good job keeping the annoyance from his voice as he spoke, in stark contrast to his tapping finger and scowl he sounded very professional. You tore your eyes from him and leaned back over the table to erase some of Mokuba’s work and explain to him the first conceptual problem. You slid his textbook toward you and picked up one of his highlighters, going over some of the important text. 

“Can you do that?” Mokuba asked, shock in his voice.

“Do what?”

“Write in the book like that, it’s school property.”

You shrugged, “It’s how I always take my notes. Easy to go back to, you don’t waste extra paper, and the next person who gets your book gets your notes too.”

“Were your teachers okay with that in America?” He stared up at you wide-eyed. 

“I mean I started doing it when my AP World teacher suggested it to us. No one said not to do it, but if they did I don’t really respect authority anyway.” You chuckled and continued marking up his textbook, “If anyone gets mad at you feel free to blame me.”

You glanced again to Seto, who was now running his free hand through his hair in irritation, messing up its usual style. He could no longer keep the aggravation from his voice as he demanded better results from the person on the other end, still speaking in perfect English. You were impressed by his mastery of the language, though it wasn’t unexpected since you knew he visited the US quite often. 

You returned your attention to Mokuba again and began explaining the math problem in front of him, showing him how to calculate angular size with some practice examples before having him do the homework problem. He was clearly not having a fun time with the work, but stayed attentive, and clearly appreciated you helping him. 

You turned again to Seto when he slammed the phone receiver down into its holder and groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose and collecting himself for a moment before picking it up again and dialing a number. He brought the phone to his ear and scowled at you when he noticed you watching, his eyes glancing between you and Mokuba. You offered him a sympathetic look and mouthed ‘good luck’ as Mokuba finished the math problem on his homework. 

You juggled your attention between the two brothers, helping Mokuba when he needed it and stealing glances at the positively miffed Seto as he struggled to keep his temper in check. He was still speaking in English, and from what you could gather he was now talking to someone in marketing rather than sales. It sounded like someone had mixed up the marketing release dates for Kaiba Corporation’s virtual reality game and the newest duel disk models, which was apparently a grievous error. 

You couldn’t keep an entertained smile from your face as you watched him deal with the fuck-up that had been dropped in his lap. Though you obviously felt bad for him having to fix the mess, it was fun to watch his methods-- try to be calm and logical until he heard something he didn’t like, then angrily explain why the person was an idiot, then switch to threatening to fire them if they didn’t fix the problems. His dramatic reactions were incredibly entertaining, and part of you found him throwing around his authority around kind of hot. Though, you would never ever admit thinking the display of dominance was sexy. 

You heard a giggle from Mokuba and turned to look down at him, your speculative gaze met with the wide grin on his face. You glanced over his homework, which was now nearly complete, then back to him. 

“I just noticed something good,” He whispered devilishly and waved you closer. His expression was mischievous, which intrigued you, and you leaned down so his mouth was close to your ear, curious about his little secret. 

“ _You like my brother don’t you?_ ” 

Your eyes widened and you blinked in surprise, heartbeat speeding up as you racked your brain for a response. How on earth did he pick up on it? So quickly? Did he mean like as in like-like? Of course he did, his tone was clear on that. Was it a guess, or did he know for sure? What should you do? You had two choices, either deny your feelings for Seto, who was sitting less than ten feet away (though admittedly completely absorbed in his phone call) or confide is his little brother of questionably trustworthiness. You chose to ease into it. 

“What makes you think that?” You asked cautiously. 

His grin only grew wider, and you realized quickly you had made the wrong choice. “The way you’ve been staring at him.” 

“Well yeah,” you began, putting on your best front and trying not to sound defensive, “He’s been yelling for the past half hour, it’s fun to watch.” 

“No not that you’ve been staring at him. The _way_ you’ve been staring at him.” He kept his voice low so his elder brother would not notice your conversation.

“And what _way_ might that be?” You raised an eyebrow. 

“Like this!” Mokuba erased the grin on his face and squeezing his eyes shut, taking a moment for dramatic pause. He then opened his eyes and looked up at you, his lips barely parted and eyebrows raised slightly in childish interest. Affection sparkled in his grey-blue eyes, and you found yourself both very impressed by his impression of you and a little embarrassed.

“Do I actually look like that?” You frowned. 

“Yes!” He tried to keep his voice a whisper and switched back to his infantile grin effortlessly. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” you muttered in English, chewing on the inside of your cheek for a moment before realizing what your response meant. “No I don’t mean--”

It was too late. Mokuba bounced up and down on the couch cushion, unable to contain his excitement. You were somehow less upset that he had discovered your little (okay, big) crush on his brother, and more terrified that if the little scamp could notice, someone as calm and calculating as Seto must have already caught on to you. But, you told yourself, he could also be incredibly dense at times. Maybe he hadn’t noticed yet. 

“You can’t tell him,” you whispered and clamped your hands together, “Please Mokuba.” 

“You admit it?” 

“Do you promise not to say anything to him?” You asked firmly. 

He nodded furiously, and you glanced over to Seto to confirm he was still deep in his phone call. Thankfully, he was completely oblivious to Mokuba’s giggling and you’re racing heart. You buried your face in your hands and groaned to collect yourself, not at all thrilled to admit feelings for Seto to his younger brother. But, at this point, it was your best course of action. 

“Fine. Yes, I admit it,” you whispered, defeated. 

“I knew--” 

Mokuba’s excited susurration was interrupted by Seto loudly hanging up the phone, and the two of you turned to look at him. You let in a sharp breath and quickly molded your face into a natural one, trying your hardest to bury all of your embarrassment and fear. Seto glanced to his monitor, then to his brother. 

“Mokuba, it’s time for you to get home for your piano lesson.” He said sternly, pressing one of the buttons on the phone and demanding the limo be pulled around front. Mokuba begrudgingly collected his homework and shoved it into his school bag, and got off the couch. 

“Thanks for helping with my homework!” He exclaimed, pulling his bag over his shoulder and wiggling his eyebrows at you triumphantly. You bit your bottom lip to suppress a groan, nodding up at him as he headed to the private elevator. You watched him enter the elevator, and you both waved at each other as the doors closed, leaving you and Seto alone in his office. 

Between Seto’s furious disposition and your total discomfort, the air in the room quickly felt stiff and sour. You tapped your finger on your arm and directed your gaze to the floor, unable to will yourself to make eye contact with the elder Kaiba. Now that you were acutely aware of how you looked when you stared at the man, you were terrified of looking at him and exposing yourself. 

_Well, at least Mokuba’s in a good mood_ , you thought.

“You’re upset.” Seto observed, his voice cold, but no longer holding the anger it had moments ago. 

You looked up at him and parted your lips to say something, but couldn’t think of anything to say. You couldn’t very well deny that you were upset, but you weren’t mad at him. At the same time, you feared if you said anything you would give yourself away. So, you merely shook your head and avoided his gaze, purposely looking past him rather than at him. 

“Are you really so childish that you’re still upset over the bet?” He asked harshly.

“No, it’s not that,” you muttered, again casting your gaze to the floor uncomfortably. Though, now that he had brought up the bet again, you felt even more down at your loss. You had really wanted to word your question better now that you heard his earlier answer, and ask him why he had been so nice to you during your first day working together. He had barely known you, yet he had taken you to lunch, and you had been wondering his motives ever since. Your frown deepened. 

He sighed loudly, exasperation clear as day, and it made you flinch inwardly. You toyed with the thought of making up an excuse and just leaving his office for the day, not wanting to bother him with your shitty mood.

“Ask me.” 

“Huh?” You looked up at him. 

“Your question. Clearly I didn’t answer it earlier or you wouldn’t be acting like such a child. So ask me.”

“Seto that’s not--”

“I will not offer again.” He said sternly. 

You opened your mouth to protest but quickly clamped it shut and stared into his blue eyes, debating on how exactly to word your question. For the moment, you forgot about your anxiety over him discovering your feelings for him, especially with how he had wrongly predicted was causing your terrible mood. 

“Do you remember the day you took me for lunch the first day we worked together?” You began.

He nodded. 

“Why were you so nice to me? I mean, you didn’t know me, it’s obvious I annoyed you, but you still agreed to take me out and…” you glanced around the room and tried to figure out where you were going with the question, “I just… what did you want from me?”

“Want from you?” He raised an eyebrow. 

“Yeah, you aren’t the kind of guy to do something nice just to be nice,” you realized that your words sounded harsher than you had intended but you continued, “So I assume you had other motives.” 

He frowned, but it was not at your assumption that he had ulterior motives. Rather, it was a frown that said you had figured him out, and you swallowed a lump in your throat in response. You watched his brow furrow as he milled through his brain, thinking up a response to your question that he seemed unprepared and unhappy to answer. You turned your body in the couch so you were facing him completely and bit at the inside of your cheek. 

“Boredom,” he muttered resentfully. 

“Boredom?” You blinked in surprise, “Wait you’re friends with me because I’m entertaining?” 

He narrowed his eyes. 

“Not that I’m not flattered,” a smirk tugged at the corners of your lips, “Because I am. But needing entertainment seems very unlike you.”

“Aren’t you the one constantly encouraging me to shirk my responsibilities in favor of fun?” He chided. 

“Yeah, and you’re the one constantly scolding me for it and acting like the adult.” You teased, “I’m just surprised.” 

Seto abruptly stood from his chair and turned to face the wall of windows behind him, folding his hands behind his back and keeping his face forward so you could not see his expression. You toyed with the idea of joining him by the windows, but ultimately decided to stay where you were and give him some space, curious how this conversation would play out. You shifted your weight so your side leaned against the cushions on the back of the couch, snuggling your cheek into them. 

“I went to highschool with a group of insufferable buffoons,” he began, and despite his words his voice had taken on a sort of nostalgic tone, “They are some of the most childish, optimistic, naive people I have ever met.”

You absently picked at a hangnail on your finger and processed his words, trying to decide whether he was friends with the people he was describing or not. The words coming out of his mouth were harsh, but his tone had a strange warmness to it, as if he were speaking of old pals. You wondered what kind of people they must have been to befriend Seto Kaiba, but then thought of yourself and frowned. 

“One of them died.” He stated abruptly, and your eyes widened at the sudden lack of emotion in his voice. “Perhaps died isn’t….” He muttered, and you wouldn’t have heard him had you not been listening so intently. 

“Were you friends?” You asked softly, “With the person who died, I mean?”

He said nothing for a while, though you noticed one of his hands squeeze the other tighter behind his back and his shoulders slump slightly. His silhouette against the grey, clouded sky outside of the building filled your chest with sadness, especially considering the sudden dark turn of the conversation. 

_This man has been through more than any twenty-year-old has the right to._ You thought with a frown. 

“I may have been,” he finally sighed. 

You had half a mind to get up from the couch and do something to comfort him, maybe place a hand on his shoulder or on his back like he had done for you two weeks prior. But you were not sure how he would react to physical contact, or you just being near him, especially with how his back was turned away from you. 

“I’m sorry,” you offered instead, staying put on the couch.

At that, he turned to face you, his face fixed into an emotionless mask. You shifted uncomfortably at the look, recalling a similar, forced expression when he told you he and Mokuba were adopted. You allowed a small, sympathetic smile to weave its way onto your face and directed it to him. 

“Anyway,” he began, any warmth from his earlier tone now buried under a cold, unfeeling demeanor, “since the Geek Patrol graduated and dispersed across the country--” he frowned, “--And America, I find my days more monotonous than previously.”

“Geek Patrol?” You had difficulty keeping the chuckle down, “I’m a replacement for the Geek Patrol?”

He leveled a scowl at you, and you were glad for it replacing the emotionless mask. If your purpose was to be entertainment for him, you resolved to become the best entertainer in your field. You could get used to a title like “Official Cheerer-Upper of Seto Kaiba.”

“Do I get a silly nickname too?” You teased. 

“No. Your name is fine.” He grumbled. 

“Well, am I at least fulfilling my purpose?” You asked, propping yourself up on the couch and letting the entertained grin fade from your face in favor of a content stare. You were absolutely fishing for a compliment, especially after his purposeful denial of your friendship earlier. You found yourself desiring constant validation from him, more than you had ever wanted it from anyone outside of your family. 

“You’re doing fine,” he replied. 

“Fine enough for you to call me a friend?” You grinned and suggestively wiggled your eyebrows. 

“Don’t push it,” He said, and you briefly wondered if you were imagining the warmness you heard in his tone. He sat back down in his chair and made a point to ignore your dorky smile until you finally decided to head out of his office and leave him to his work for the rest of the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy birthday to meeeeeeeeeeee  
> This chapter is basically a birthday gift to myself because y'all commenting on my work is the highlight of my day. I didn't lie when I said my self-esteem revolves around the validation of others. So uhhhhhhh... comment that shit ;)
> 
> Update on my kitty cat! He's still at the vet right now, they had to put him under for like an hour, but apparently he's been super happy and friendly despite having the worst day ever. They said he should be discharged by noon though so hopefully he will be home and feeling better by the time I update next. 
> 
> ((Update at 1:00 today. He's home safe and sound!!! $2500 later, and he will need to be on a lot of different medicines from now on but I'm glad he is alright ♡♡))
> 
> I haven't slept much because my Portfolio professor is bringing in an industry professional to look at our midterm garments and decide if they're good enough to present. If she says they're bad, we don't get to present them. Spoiler: I think my suit is actually garbage so I'm not looking forward to that. I'm like 50/50 at this point on if I think I'll be able to put it in the portfolio final. Guys my life is a mess.


	14. To Err is Human...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who's ready for some dramaaaaaaa?

You were in the middle of getting ready for bed when a loud knock at the door startled you out of your routine. You glanced at yourself in the full-body mirror and frowned at the sight of your face caked in a charcoal mask, hair up in a messy ponytail, dressed in an old Death Knight bathrobe and soft PJs. You contemplated just ignoring the door and going to bed when you heard another, louder knock. You groaned, _who in the world shows up to someone's home at ten o'clock at night_? 

You bit the inside of your cheek and shuffled over to the door, opening it with a raised eyebrow to the sight of Seto staring you down. 

"Evening." You mumbled up at him.

"What the hell is that?" He pointed to your face with a look of mild curiosity. You stepped aside and gestured for him to come in as you touched your face.

"Oh, it's a charcoal mask. Helps clean off my makeup and tighten my pores."

"It look ridiculous." He scoffed, brushing lightly against your shoulder as he entered your home. A small shiver hit you the second his arm touched you, and you cursed your lack of restraint and his stupid good looks.

"There's a reason I wear it before bed and not in public, dummy." You replied, closing and locking the door behind him. 

Seto pulled his phone out of his pocket and glanced at the screen, then back at you, "It's only ten, you could get so much more done in the day."

"I have class at eight, and I need my 6 REM cycles. Otherwise I get bags like a certain someone I know," You crossed your arms over your chest and smirked up at him, "What do you need anyway?" 

"We have work to do."

"Huh? I thought we finished our final project last week specifically so we wouldn't have to cram?" You huffed.

"I noticed some mistakes. We're going to fix them." He began walking into your living room, stopping when he glanced back at you and you weren't following him. He clicked his tongue in clear annoyance, "Otherwise I won't be able to sleep."

You sighed softly, closing your eyes and leaning your head back against your front door. He was getting good at learning what you responded well to, and he knew his health was one of those things. _Dammit._

"Alright, let me wash this shit off my face," you sighed and pushed yourself off the door, pointing to your loveseat in the living room, "Go ahead and get comfy." 

You wandered into the bathroom listening to the sounds of Seto plopping calculus books and materials on your coffee table. Normally you would be thrilled to have him show up at your house unannounced, but under the circumstances... well you were tired, shockingly not in the mood to do math, and mentally unprepared to sit near him in your PJs, messy hair, and lack of makeup. On top of it all, your monthly visit from a certain Aunt Flow was underway, and rampant hormones made you even more irritable. Not to mention, you tended to have a hard time concentrating on anything when you were about to go to bed, and lost basically any filter whilst tired. You couldn't imagine Seto would appreciate any of that since the man was always running on optimal settings and was ready to do work whenever the need arose. 

You finished washing your face and walked into your kitchen, glancing at the pot of coffee from this morning. There was enough in there for one more cup, so you poured it into the snarkiest mug you owned-- a big white one with "I'm the boss" in bold black letters-- and popped it into the microwave. You didn't plan to drink any, otherwise you'd never get to sleep, but Seto would probably appreciate it. Or insult it. Probably the latter.

You brought the mug into the living room and set it down on the coffee table next to his open book, noticing that he had taken the liberty of sitting right in the middle of your not-so-spacious loveseat, leaving you a small space right next to him. You pulled out your notebook from your bag next to the coffee table and slipped beside him, very aware of his leg touching yours. He passed you over one of the sheets the two of you had worked on the week before, now with red x's and notes neatly jotted around the mistakes either of you had made. 

"You fix that page," He ordered, glancing at the mug of coffee you had set down for him. He scoffed as he read the letters emblazoned on the front, and you were glad the joke wasn't lost on him. "For me?" 

"Yeah. You'll probably hate it. I didn’t add extra grounds." You mumbled curtly, taking out a pencil and calculator and scanning over the page he had handed you and groaning, "This is a lot we need to redo."

"Yes." He replied simply, taking a sip of the coffee. You watched his face twist into utter disapproval at the taste, replaced just as quickly with the usual emotionless gaze. You didn't say anything, expecting him to call you inept or tell you you made shitty coffee, but instead he took another sip and began working on his own corrections.

You were shocked at his reaction-- or rather the lack thereof-- but tried your best to refocus yourself on the work in front of you. You pulled out a fresh piece of paper and began redoing the first problem you had botched. It was a simple fix, and an understandable mistake, but you still cursed yourself for not getting it right the first time. Just as you finished the problem you felt Seto shift next to you, and his leg brushed against yours as a reminder that he was still very much present. He was so close to you it was almost unbearable, in your state of fatigue your inhibitions were practically nonexistent, and every fiber of you wanted to say 'Instead of doing math why don't you do me instead?' or something equally stupid. 

You looked over to him and scanned his face, a perfect mask as ever, his striking blue eyes focused on his work as his pencil traveled swiftly across the paper. Your eyes followed each of his long fingers as they quickly pressed the buttons on his calculator. _Oh, the things those fingers could do...._

You could barely force yourself to tear your eyes away from him long enough to write out the first step of the second problem, all the while wishing you had more self-control when it came to him. After you had fallen asleep on him about a month ago and admitted your crush to yourself, your restraint was being thrown out the window in pieces. Combined with your heightened ruttishness caused by your time of the month, you were having a very difficult time focusing on anything but him. Which was a problem, because after Mokuba’s discovery of your feelings for the elder Kaiba, you were even more self-conscious of how you acted around him. You were trying desperately not to make it obvious that you were falling hard for Seto, and driving yourself mad in the process. About halfway through re-doing the third problem on the paper, you heard Seto grunt, and you looked up from the paper, meeting his annoyed gaze that was clearly directed at you. 

"What the hell are you doing?" 

"Huh?" You were startled by his sudden exasperation. 

"You just made the same mistake again. Are you even paying attention?" Seto grabbed the pencil out of your hand and leaned across you to erase all the work you had just done. His back pressed against your chest, close enough that you could smell him. He smelled clean, faintly of expensive aftershave and dry-cleaning detergents. Part of you hoped he had a lot to fix of your work so he wouldn't be able to move, feeling his shoulder flex against your body as he re-wrote the first part of the problem. The other part of you was mortified that he had to point out your mistake for a second time, and had to go about fixing it because you were distracted. He quickly moved away and handed your pencil back, and you found yourself disappointed at the loss of body heat. 

"Sorry," you mumbled, "I'm just tired."

"I don't care. Get it right this time."

You returned to the math work, more distracted than before. You were embarrassed that Seto had found it necessary to fix your fuck-ups, regretted putting him into a bad mood, and to top it all off you now couldn't stop thinking about how he smelled. Well, really, you couldn't stop thinking about everything involving him. The way he moved, the way he felt pressed against your body, the way he drank the shitty coffee you made him despite you knowing it wasn’t at all strong enough for his coffee snobbery.

You fixed the third problem carefully, triple-checking it to make sure it was right before moving on. You heard him place the mug back on the coffee table, presumably after taking another sip, and felt yourself growing annoyed. Why was he drinking it anyway? You could tell by his face earlier that he didn't like it, so why was he putting up with it? Why was he putting up with you in this state in the first place? You had wasted his time fixing your mistakes, you were completely out of it, and yet when you glanced back at his face he no longer looked annoyed, actually he looked kind of content. 

By the time you finished fixing the fifth problem you had been stewing on all the thoughts spiraling through your head long enough that you were in a horrible mood. If you weren't so exhausted, you probably wouldn't have even spent so much time thinking on every little detail, but it was now almost midnight, you desperately needed sleep, your period cramps were starting back up, and you could barely focus on the work you had to finish. Your mind swirled with thoughts of Seto, good and bad, but mostly ones you'd prefer he never knew about. 

_Just two more problems left_ you tried to encourage yourself as your mood worsened. Just as you had begun correcting the second-to-last question you noticed Seto finishing the mug of coffee and shifting to brush against you again. A sigh escaped your lips, and he turned his head to look at you. 

"What?"

Shit. 

"Nothing, sorry." You replied, trying to keep the bad mood out of your voice, but he clearly noticed it.

"What's wrong with you tonight?" His eyes narrowed at you, like he was studying your face trying to figure out what was going on despite your best efforts to hide it all.

"I'm fine," you said, but regretted saying anything because you knew you sounded like a total asshole, especially because mixed in with his own desire to get you back to work, he actually seemed a bit concerned. It was quite uncharacteristic of him, and though the rational portion of your brain tried to tell you to calm down and just be happy he was showing so much concern, the irrational part was already wound-up with frustration and anxiety and refused to relinquish control. 

"Don't lie to me," he frowned, at this point sounding pretty annoyed for having to deal with with your shit.

You groaned, feeling your discipline crumbling under fatigue and self-loathing, and you knew if you said anything now it would come out all wrong. You pinched the bridge of your nose and shook your head at him, returning your gaze to your work. 

"Let's just finish our work." You managed.

"What you're doing could barely be considered 'working'," Seto scoffed. 

Oh boy that was it.

You dropped your pencil onto the coffee table and snapped your head back to face him, locking eyes, "Okay, fine. You want to know what's wrong, huh?" _Uh-oh._ "You show up at my house unannounced, seat yourself in the middle of the fucking couch even though there's all that space over there--" you pointed to the other end of the loveseat, "Drink the shitty coffee I made even though I know you don't like it," you gestured to the empty mug on the coffee table next to him and continued, despite knowing full well you weren't actually upset about any of those things, "Really everything you've done tonight is wrong, _Seto_." 

His eyes widened in a mix of shock and confusion at your little outburst for no more than a couple seconds before his face settled on a dark scowl. You realized about halfway through your rant you had started yelling, and just as quickly as the flood of words had left your mouth you regretted every single one of them. You felt like an over-reacting child. Nothing you had spat at him was even a big deal at all, but with the way you spoke they may as well have been the end of the fucking world. Your eyes widened as you processed everything you had just thrown at him, searching for the words to fix everything, but you couldn't find them. Seto grabbed the rest of the work he had laid out and slid them to the other end of the table, moving himself to the other side of the loveseat as far away from you as possible. He picked up his pencil and focused on the last few problems he had left to correct, the scowl etched into his face as he made it very clear he did not want to speak to you anymore. 

_Fucking fuck_. You started chewing at the inside of your cheek again, wanting desperately to apologize to him for everything you had just said and knew full well he did not deserve, but you knew he didn't want to hear it. You pushed your thoughts aside for long enough to finish the rest of the calculus project. The two of you worked in silence for the next half hour or so in abysmal moods, finishing at about the same time. Seto had begun packing up everything he brought as you finished the last page of work and handed it to him. He about snatched it out of your hand without a word, heading toward the front door without even so much as a glance your way. 

"Seto, wait." You called, but he didn't even acknowledge that you had spoken. You rushed up off the couch and slid into the hallway as he finished putting on his shoes. As he reached for the doorknob, you instinctively grabbed the sleeve of his flashy coat, much to his growing annoyance. 

"Let go."

"Seto I'm sorry, that stuff I said was uncalled for and I shouldn't have yelled at you. I wasn't actually mad at you I was just tired and..." you trailed off, unsure of what else you could say to him. "I'm sorry."

"Is that all?" He turned his head to look at you, looking just as pissed off as he had been before. His gaze was unwavering, his blue eyes cutting right through you. "Then let go of me." It was an order.

You opened your mouth to say something else, but stopped as his eyes narrowed even further. You released your grip on the sleeve of his jacket, and he turned from you and exited your apartment. The door slammed behind him, leaving you alone in the entryway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've had too much delicious fluffy fluff and happy times, I thought it was time for a fight. 
> 
> I hope you guys don't think this is too much of an over-reaction on the reader's part. I had to play it up a little for the sake of making it interesting, but honestly this isn't that far off from how I act when I wind myself up and eventually just explode over stupid shit. I feel like everyone kind of has had that experience to some degree at least once, so hopefully this reaction is relatable enough? 
> 
> Fun fact: This is actually the very first chapter of this fic I wrote, and the scenario is actually the whole reason I wanted to start writing this story. I obviously edited and did some tweaking before posting to relate everything to the last chapter but not by much! I hope you guys liked reading this chapter as much as I liked writing it (or hated it because you feel like an asshole to precious Kaiba, either way.)
> 
>  
> 
> ALSO! Will any of you be at PAX East? I'm cosplaying as a Blue Eyes White Dragon on Saturday and bringing my decks. If you come find me and win a duel against me I'll give you a Blue Eyes phone charm that I drew and am currently 3D printing up! They're really cuuuuuuute~ :D


	15. ... To Forgive, Divine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a short chapter. It's also a cliffhanger. If you hate me for it, then I'm doing my job ;)

The two days following the incident had been practically unbearable. You tried texting Seto multiple apologies which received no response. You tried calling him but about broke down when you found out he had blocked your number. Hell, you even showed up at his office just so he'd have to listen to you, only to find that he had revoked your visitor pass and told security you weren't allowed in the building under any circumstances. Normally you would have called his behavior a childish overreaction, but you knew Seto had a tendency to overreact to absolutely everything, Plus, you fully deserved the treatment after having the audacity to yell at him for being comfortable around you like you'd been encouraging for the past few months. 

Your only chance of attempting to repair any of the damage you had done to your relationship was to pour everything out after you two handed in your calculus project. You had arrived to the classroom over an hour early just in case Seto handed in the assignment before you got there to avoid you, which you wouldn't blame him for. But you were not about to let him cut all ties without at least hearing your full apology. If he decided he still wanted nothing to do with you after that, well, you wouldn't be surprised; you'd be upset, and curse yourself for fucking up so hard for all eternity, but you'd let him go.

Seto entered the classroom a full twenty minutes before projects were being collected, as you had expected. He noticed you immediately, pointing a furious scowl in your direction, before dramatically slamming your group project on the professor's empty deck and storming out of the classroom through the other door. You bolted after him, cursing your decision to wear such thin heels as you had to practically run to close the distance he created with his long strides. 

"Seto, please, at least--"

"I have no intention of listening to anything else from you." 

You managed to catch up with him, still having to jog beside him to keep up with his pace. The two of you exited the mathematics hall and entered the main campus building, sparsely populated at this time of the morning, but a few people still roamed the halls on their way to hand in finals or head home and celebrate the end of the semester.

"Seto I--"

"You have no right to call me by that name. You don't know me, or anything about me. We're not friends."

His words hurt you more than you could have imagined, and the worst part was that you deserved them, heck you deserved worse for how you treated him. 

"Seto...." You whimpered, and though it took a moment, you regained your composure and steeled yourself. You still had to apologize, tell him you hadn't meant any of what you said like that. Tell him you'd do anything to fix it. His arm reached out to push open the doors leading to the parking lot, and you could see his limo pulled up on the curb. If you let him walk out the doors, there's no way he'd listen to your apology. He'd get into his limo and speed away, leaving you all alone. Instinctively, you reached out to grab his hand to stop him and--

"Do **_NOT_** touch me!" Seto roared as he spun on his heels to face you, anger blazing in his eyes.

You flinched away from him, more than a little scared. Describing his expression as a glower would be the understatement of the century, he was pissed. You had never seen him this mad, for that matter you had never seen anyone this mad. After the reverberation of Seto's yell disappeared, a silence descended on the main campus building. You were keenly aware of the sudden flood of eyes on you. You felt your hands shaking, and your eyes darted around the lobby at the few people who had stopped what they were doing to stare at the spectacle unfolding in front of them. 

"S-Sorry," you barely managed to choke out to him from underneath your shock. The combination of his bellow and murderous stare, and the people beginning to gather to see what was going on were more than enough to rattle you. You tried desperately to fight back tears and steady your shaking hands, your gaze unable to focus between Seto's wild eyes and the concerned looks of onlookers who wouldn't stop staring at the two of you. No one had ever yelled at you like that. Would you possibly be able to fix your friendship with Seto after seeing the way he reacted? With how much hatred he was directing at you, would he be able to forgive you? Were you already crushed before you would even fight back? 

Seto’s long fingers twitched and his body barely began to turn away from you, as if he were debating continuing to stare at you like he was ready to kill you or just walk away. The second you thought he was going to leave you alone in the building, a breath caught in your throat and the fear of loneliness threatened to drown you. Despite your best efforts you felt a hot tear cascade down your cheek, which was more than enough to push you over the edge. Tears spilled over your lower eyelids in a flood, blurring your vision which had finally managed to focus on Seto's face. Before you knew it, you were standing in the front of Seto and the audience of other students, full-on sobbing. 

"Seto I-- I didn't-- mean to--" you tried desperately to form a coherent apology between your gasps for air and the ugly sound of crying, but could no longer remember what you had wanted to say to him to express how sorry you were. 

"Seto I'm so-- I'm so sorry-- I--" it was over. There was nothing else you could say to fix any of this. He was going to leave your friendship behind him, and all you could do was stand here, overcome with a torrent of emotions, sobbing in the front of everyone. You could only bury your face in your hands in defeat, muffling the sound of your lamentations. You tried to focus on your breathing, trying to calm yourself down but the thought of looking up from your hands and Seto being gone terrified you, and prevented you from calming down at all. Regret engulfed you, and you cursed your powerlessness and lack of discipline.You swore you'd do anything to get him to forgive you, but you were too weak to do anything.

You felt a hand on your wrist, long fingers wrapping around it firmly. Your breath hitched in your throat, and for a moment you were too anxious to pull your hands from your face in case the hand didn't belong to who you thought it did. 

"Come on." Seto's stern voice broke through your weeping, and you willed yourself to look up at him. His eyes were no longer filled with anger, instead replaced with a mix of both worry and frustration, as if he couldn't decide which emotion to level at you. He turned from you, hand still secured around your wrist, and began leading you out of the campus building, away from the gazes of strangers, and into the safety of the back of his limousine.

Once the two of you were seated in the limo, he released his grip on your wrist and offered you a few tissues. You took them and began wiping the tears and snot from your face. You glanced over the tissues as you balled them up in your fist, letting out a defeated chuckle. 

"It's a good thing I put on waterproof mascara today." You murmured darkly, the cynical joke about all you could manage in your mortified state. You tried to steady your hands that were still faintly trembling, eventually working up the courage to look at Seto. He frowned down at you, arms crossed, one of his slender fingers tapping impatiently against his upper arm. You opened your mouth to speak but were stopped dead in your tracks by Seto holding up his hand. 

"I don't want to have to deal with you blubbering like a fool again." He rigidly began, "I'm going to ask you some questions and you're going to answer them truthfully, understood?"

You managed a nod in response. 

"Why are you going through all this trouble to apologize to me when I've made it clear I don't want to hear it?"

You winced at his words, letting in a shaky breath and thinking through your response before answering, "Because I value you as a friend, and I don't want to lose you over something stupid I said.. and even if you don't want me around anymore I want you to know I didn't mean any of what I said like that." 

"Why do you keep saying you didn't mean any of it 'like that'? You meant your little outburst to come out differently?"

"No." You said quickly, "Well I mean, I don't--"

"So you were lying when you said you were upset by me sitting so close, and drinking your 'shitty coffee'?"

"I wouldn't lie to you! I mean, they didn't upset me," the words rushed out of your mouth, your eyes locked with his, "It's just that I was already tired and I have a hard time concentrating when I'm tired, and I ended up wasting your time messing up the problems a bunch, and then I got distracted every time you moved or had the coffee or did anything really and then I messed up even more and it put me in a worse mood and..." you had to stop to breath, and when you were about to try explaining it better he held his hand up once again to stop you. A silence descended between the two of you as Seto processed your words and contemplated his next question.

"So you weren't upset with me, you were distracted by me?" He finally asked.

"Well... that doesn't make it sound much better I guess, but yeah." You admitted.

"Why?"

"Huh?"

He huffed, his frown crossing into glare territory as he began to grow impatient with you, "Why were you distracted by me?"

Your eyes widened, first in understanding, then surprise at how quickly he had led you to this part of your explanation. You had resolved to admit your growing feelings for him had it been necessary, and it wasn't like you were embarrassed to admit any of it. You were just a little nervous at how he would react. Okay, a lot nervous. You had never admitted feelings to a friend before, and though you had always thought the idea that a confession could ruin a friendship ridiculous, you already knew Seto was the kind of man who would cut ties with you if he felt you were pushing him too far. You feared romantic feelings would enter the 'pushing him too far' territory. 

You took a deep breath, trying to consider the best way to tell him. Every time you had imagined confessing to him you thought up a joke, but right now didn't seem like the time for jokes. Seto cleared his throat, and you snapped back to reality. You were probably overthinking it. You knew Seto, you knew that he appreciated honesty and transparency. So the best course of action would be to simply tell him. 

"Because I think..." you let out the breath you didn't realize you had been holding in, and felt some of your nerves leave you with the air in your lungs, "I'm in love with you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "And there it is." -- Dunkey 
> 
> If you were waiting to see how the Blue Eyes keychains turned out, here's a link to the photo I took of them! If you'll be at PAX East on Saturday I fully expect you to challenge me to a duel and win one of these little darlings! https://twitter.com/InappropriCat/status/838863054397931520/photo/1
> 
> The last and this chapter titles are halves of the full Alexander Pope quote "To err is human, to forgive divine" which I think is a fitting quote. Not only on the surface, but also because I think it says a lot about someone like Kaiba, who does not forgive very often, making the effort to forgive our dear reader. The man holds some pretty big grudges. 
> 
> Please do let me know what you thought of the update. The next chapter is already written but I love hearing your theories on what you think will happen next, so bring em on!


	16. The Party

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright boys and girls the last chapter was short and cliffhanger-y so to make up for it, strap yourselves in for 5,000 words. LET'S GO.

You watched a myriad of emotions cross Seto's features after you managed to confess your feelings for him. Starting with shock, then confusion, understanding, the briefest flash of guilt, and finally settling on his usual, carefully constructed, emotionless mask. You, on the other hand, started with nervousness plastered on your face, and found yourself with even more nervousness building up in your chest. Seto looked like he was thinking over the bomb you had dropped in his lap, and although you wanted to give him ample time to respond, the longer the silence in the car lasted, the more you felt like you were going to throw up. Your eyes followed his finger as it again began tapping against his arm, then darted to his face as he pursed his lips in thought. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back to rest against the car seat, allowing a long breath to exit his nose.

"That explains quite a bit." Seto finally broke the silence, but he didn't move from his position. You felt your fingers beginning to tremble again, expectancy building in your chest. What was he going to say? He didn't look disgusted, which was a good sign, but you weren't sure how he'd react beyond that. 

"I'm annoyed I didn't notice it myself." He murmured. 

He turned his head and opened his eyes to scan you. It felt like he was observing you like a piece of merchandise, searching for any defects, figuring out what he could use you for. You steadied yourself as best as you could, but couldn't fight back the worry clawing at your brain. Was he going to accept you? Throw you away? The longer his gaze lingered across your features the more you felt like you had to pee from apprehension. His eyes followed the lines of your collarbones, the curves of your body, observing absolutely everything from your hands you tried to hold steady, to the way your hair spilled around your shoulder, to the shape of your breasts. You began to feel a little uncomfortable with how slowly his eyes crawled over every little inch of your being. For once, you couldn't read anything at all from his facial expression, as if he wasn't reacting to anything he saw about you, but merely absorbing information. Like you were a problem he was trying to solve. 

"Fine." He finally announced. 

You blinked up at him, waiting for more of a clarification, but one didn't come. 

"Uh, fine? Fine what?" 

He hummed in response, glancing out the window to see that the limousine had pulled up in front of your apartment. You hadn't even noticed the car stop. The driver opened your door and bowed, gesturing quickly for you to exit. Immediately, panic set over you. Was he kicking you out? Had you failed?

"I'll pick you up at six. Fix your makeup and put on a nice dress," he gave you another scan, "and do something about your hair, you look like a mess." 

Your eyes darted back to Seto in utter disbelief. He was forgiving you? No, he was suggesting more than forgiveness at this point. Was this a date he was proposing? You swallowed and cleared your throat. 

"Uh, what color should I wear?"

He raised an eyebrow to your question.

"My dress. Should I match whatever you'll be wearing? Unless I'm missing something here." You tried to keep your voice calm and level, but about halfway through your question it cracked.

He thought on it for a moment, before responding, "Wear blue and white if you insist on matching me."

Oh, well that sounded like a reasonable color combo. You had to visualize everything in your closet for a moment to remember if you even owned a blue and white dress. There was the one you had made for your Functional design class (despite the fact that there was nothing remotely functional about the garment, it didn't even have pockets) that you were pretty in love with, and you hoped that it wouldn't be too formal. 

"Wait a second," a grin danced across your lips, "Blue and white, like a Blue Eyes White Dragon?"

"Don't make me regret inviting you." He snapped to defend himself and furrowed his brow at you, but you could tell from his lack of serious scowl that he wasn't nearly as angry as he had been. You were relieved to find that Seto was already getting back to how he was before the few days prior. Most of your nerves from earlier had completely vanished, and you exited his limo with every intention of spending the rest of the day turning yourself into a goddess. You were not going to embarrass Seto Kaiba in public. No, you were going to prove you were worthy of his friendship. More than his friendship?

Honestly the conversation in the limo had been pretty vague. You weren't sure if Seto was inviting you out with him as merely a sign of forgiveness, or if it was actually a date. You were afraid to get your hopes up, but found your heart fluttering every time the words 'a date with Seto Kaiba' flashed in your head. 

 

You had finished getting ready a little over an hour early, having spent quite a long time getting into your dress since it was a corset lace-up and you had trouble putting it on yourself. You ended up going to your neighbor in the apartment next door and asking her if she could lace you up. She seemed really nice, at least. You had tried to eat something before Seto arrived, but were too nervous to swallow much of anything, and after downing over half a pot of coffee with nothing in your stomach, you found yourself jittery from a caffeine high and fidgety from nerves.

You tried to calm yourself down by playing a few games of Overwatch, but only ended up frustrated because no one wanted to push the payload, and you got solo killed by Genji as Mercy about half a dozen times. You had to log off before you gave in to your urge to call your teammates a bunch of scrubs, and wandered around your little apartment for a while trying to find something to focus your attention on lest you went insane worrying about tonight.

You gave yourself another good look in the mirror to make sure the curls in your hair were bouncy and your makeup was flawless. Your curls spilled around your bare shoulders, the sweetheart neckline showing off a tasteful amount of cleavage, and the corset pulled you in just enough in the right places. The gown poofed out just above your hips in alternating, ruffled tiers of blue and white, and you were growing more and more proud at how your final had turned out. Now you just had to make sure not to ruin it tonight so you could hand it in for grading in two days....

 _Never imagined I'd be getting nervous over a date like this._ You thought, and then promptly reminded yourself that you didn't even know it was a date yet. Just as you were debating changing the color of your lipstick, you were startled by knuckles rapping at the door. You threw on your white heels and scampered to the door, letting in a deep breath to calm yourself before opening it.

Before you stood Seto, dressed in a slim pair of white dress pants and a matching, well tailored white suit jacket over top a pale blue button up and darker blue tie. You recalled seeing him wear this suit during some tournament he hosted in the pictures of him you stalked on Google, but the photos clearly didn't do the man justice. His hair was styled the same as always, but with more care, and his blue eyes popped even more than usual against his attire. The man practically oozed wealth and good-looks. 

"You clean up well," you drawled with a playful smile.

Seto raised an eyebrow in response, but quickly dismissed your compliment with a shake of his head. He was in the midst of studying you as well. His eyes traveled over the curves of your body and dress, the curls in your hair, and even the silver jewelry you had picked out to compliment the soft colors. You were preparing yourself for him to turn around without remarking on your appearance at all, or even make fun you, when--

"You look lovely." He observed, his face completely void of emotion  
.  
You felt your heart just about jump out of your chest, your eyes widened in surprise at the completely out-of-character remark. You watched his lips tug into a half-smirk at the sight of you flustered, and inwardly cursed him. He extended his elbow to you, and it took you a moment to process the fact that he wanted you to take it. You lightly placed your hand in the small of his elbow and the two of you exited your apartment. 

He led you to the curb outside of your apartment to a very expensive looking black sports car, and opened the passenger side door for you, gesturing for you to get in. You smoothed the layers of your dress as you sat down in the dark leather seat in awe, looking around the pristine interior. He got in next to you and started the car, the loud growl startling you a little. You weren't really one for loud cars, and found the sound a little alarming, but you were pretty sure you were supposed to be impressed. 

You placed your elbow on the center console and leaned over toward him, "I didn't know you knew how to drive," you teased.

He scoffed, "Of course I know how to drive." 

"What kind of car is this?" You hummed, and watched the road roll by as you quickly realized Seto was going well over the speed limit. 

"A Ferrari." He replied, his eyes focused on the road in front of him.

"Ooh, expensive," you cooed. 

"Is that all you know about this car?" 

"I know that it's so loud because of a flat crankshaft or something," you said, excited to prove him wrong. Although, you weren't positive if the flat crankshaft fact was actually in reference to a Ferrari or another sports car, you hoped you were right. 

Seto glanced over at you with a raised eyebrow, and he actually looked a little impressed with your useless fact. Only a little. 

"Where did you pick that one up?"

"My roommate freshman year was really into cars. Like, really into cars. She used to spend entire days reading about cars and watching car videos and spitting off car facts to me. I think she got off on it." You shrugged, "Usually I blocked out basically everything she said to me, but I guess I retained some of it." 

"I'm surprised you had a female roommate obsessed with cars," he remarked. 

"Yeah, she's an engineering major. Well, I think she still is. I unfollowed her on Facebook because she's obnoxious. But she wanted to build cars for a living. Or invent cars. Or something to do with cars." You turned your head to face him, "So was I right?"

"About?"

"The flat shaft thing?"

He smirked, "Partially. In newer models tuning is more important to give the Ferrari the distinct sound it has, but all the parts that--" 

You groaned to yourself, regretting ever bringing up the damn car in the first place. You returned to staring straight ahead at the road with a sneaking suspicion that the only reason Seto had been eager to talk about cars was because he knew you hated it. Bastard. 

By the time he finished his lecture on cylinders or pistons or whatever the fuck, he was pulling into a long circular driveway in front of a very, very large mansion. There were quite a few other cars parked around the roundabout of a driveway, all looking equally as expensive as Seto's. He slowed to a stop just outside of the entrance of the estate and a valet opened the door for you with a graceful bow. You carefully stepped out of the car and thanked him while Seto handed the man his keys. He once again offered you his elbow, and you took it, reminding yourself to stand straight and do your best to exude confidence as he led you you to the entrance of the mansion.

As you entered, you took your time processing your surroundings. The large foyer seemed to stretch on forever, its tall ceiling supported by huge marble pillars, and the floors beneath you were a perfectly polished white speckled stone. It was filled with people dressed in lavish suits and some of the most beautiful (and a few of the tackiest) gowns you had ever seen. Some of them stood around long banquet tables for a snack, or ordered drinks at the personal bar. You noticed others in clusters chatting with each other, dishonest smiles dancing along many of their faces. At least if you spent your entire evening pretending you belonged and accentuating your poise, you would be far from the only liar in the room. 

You watched a plump man-- whom you estimated was in his late forties from the grey hairs and wrinkles forming around his eyes-- in a posh suit excitedly make his way to the two of you, extending his hand to Seto for a handshake. 

"Mister Kaiba, glad you could make it!" He exclaimed, a wide smile stretched across his face. He turned his attention to you, a fascinated glint in his eye, "I've never seen you with a woman before, she's absolutely stunning!" 

You smiled at his compliment, debating whether is was genuine or a way to get on Seto's good side, while Seto introduced you as his date. The man looked surprised at first, but then let out a hearty laugh. 

"Well you are getting to that age after all, aren't you?" He clapped a hand on Seto's shoulder, and you settled on the fact that you liked him. He looked behind Seto to see another couple enter the foyer, and flashed a smile your way, "Well, duty calls! Enjoy the night you two. And Mister Kaiba, you must come find me later so I can discuss business with you!" He walked off briskly to greet the two who had just entered the party, and you watched Seto shoot a scathing glower at his shoulder. 

"Who was that?" You asked cheerfully. 

"Mister Okuro, our host. He heads the Sony branch that's been working with my company to optimize our newest releases on their systems." He replied sourly. 

"He seems nice. Kinda reminds me of my uncle." 

The two of you barely got a few feet further into the spacious lobby before another man greeted Seto cheerily and practically whisked him away to talk business, leaving you alone in the middle of the foyer. You stood around lost for a moment, before wandering over to the bar to order yourself a cocktail. Unfortunately, you did not know the Japanese term for a Dark and Stormy, if such a term existed, and ended up looking up the recipe for the bartender on your phone. While the older gentleman got to work making your drink, you eavesdropped on the conversation of two women a few seats down, passing you glances and trying to figure out who you were and why Seto had brought you along to the party. As the bartender brought over your drink, you felt a sense of panic, and leaned over to the gentleman sitting next to you. 

"Excuse me, this is going to sound like a stupid question, but am I supposed to tip him?" You gestured to the bartender. 

The man let out what you could only describe as the most forced chuckle you had ever experienced. He looked over you and waited for a moment for you to laugh as well, before realizing that you were not, in fact, joking. He squinted at you in thought, and you had to bite the inside of your lip to keep from scowling at him. 

"I'm just gonna do it." You pulled out a few bills from your handbag and placed them on the bar and grabbed your drink, ready to pretend you had not just made an absolute fool of yourself. With your drink in hand, you wandered over to a table with hors d'oeuvres that all look too pretty to actually eat. You tried the smallest slice of cake you had ever seen, which was delicious, then a fancy looking slice of cheese on a cracker with a little tomato on top, which was not so delicious. After trying a few others and feeling rather unsatisfied, you stealthily returned to the cake and ate another four tiny slices. No regrets. You were about halfway through your Dark and Stormy when Seto returned to you, looking rather stressed. 

"Dude, you should try this cake," you said with a grin, "It's pretty good."

"I don't like sweets." He replied coldly, then eyed the drink in your hand, "What is that?"

"A Dark and Stormy." You replied in English, still unsure of the Japanese term for the cocktail, and offered him your glass. 

"Is it sweet?"

"Not at all," you responded, and he begrudgingly took the glass and tried a sip. He raised his eyebrows at it as if to imply he liked it, and handed it back to you. "So who was that guy?"

"Which one?" He muttered with a sigh, "I haven't stopped chatting with people trying to take advantage of my company since we got here." 

You hummed sadly at his response, "Is that normal for these parties?" 

"Yes." Seto crossed his arms across the chest as he eyed another man sauntering over to them, a woman on his arm. 

"Who's that?" You asked quietly. 

"Mister Tao, on the board of directors for a particularly troublesome company that competes with Kaiba Corporation. He used to be acquainted with Gozaburo." He replied in a hushed tone. His eyes were dark and his body had tensed up as Tao reached him with a wild grin. The two shook hands and exchanged pleasantries, and the woman with him directed a forced smile at you, which you met with a nod and a sip of your drink. 

"This is Ami," Tao gestured to the woman on his arm with a superficial smile, "Isn't she beautiful?"

Seto introduced you, not bothering to comment on the woman at all. He wore a stoic mask over his face, but you recognized the darkness in his eyes growing. It was obvious to you he was ready to end the short conversation already, but he remained civilized. The two of them barely discussed anything, Tao trying to probe Seto for information on his company and Seto denying him with short, nondescript answers. Ami looked about as uncomfortable as you felt, shooting you concerned glances, but you had a hard time focusing on anything but her eyebrows, which were in a horrible state. Poor woman looked like she had two sad caterpillars on her face. 

Just as you were seriously considering inviting her to the bathroom to do something about them, Tao and Seto finished their conversation, and the tall man excused himself and his date. You offered Seto your drink again, figuring he needed the rest more than you did. To your surprise, he wordlessly took the glass and downed the rest of it. 

"Seto, why do you come to these things if you hate them so much?"

"I have a responsibility as the CEO of Kaiba Corp. I frequently put up with things I don't like and don't complain about them." He sighed, clearly taking a jab at your outburst from a few days ago. You shifted your weight to your other leg uncomfortably and directed your gaze to the floor, unsure how to respond. 

Shortly thereafter Mister Okuro, the host, announced that dinner would be served soon and requested everyone take a seat. You and Seto made your way over to a table on the opposite side of your room, and he scooted out your chair for you politely, ever the gentleman. You sat down and smoothed out your dress, watching him take a seat next to you gracefully while other men and women began to fill the rest of the chairs around you. 

Introductions were made once the table was full, and dinner began making its way out of the kitchen. One of the men at the table turned his attention to you. 

"So, you're Mister Kaiba's date? How did the two of you meet?"

"Uhm," you were surprised that the man had directed the question to you instead of Seto, it was the first time you'd really been spoken to all night, "Well we got paired up for a group assignment so we ended up spending a lot of time together." You tried to keep the story simple as a plate of lobster and steak made its way in front of you. 

"My that must have been lucky for you!" The man smiled, "I'm sure many women would love to have been in your position!" 

"Ah but I'm sure Mister Kaiba has high standards, doesn't he?" Another man chimed in from across the table, "Just look at her!" 

"You're right, she is beautiful," the first man beamed at you. 

"Well I have about three-hundred dollars worth of makeup on right now so I sure hope I look good." You grinned.

Seto shot you a glance, but everyone at the table boomed with laughter, which calmed your nerves a little. The rest of the meal passed mostly with talks of business, which you only half-listened to and Seto hardly participated in, only really speaking when he was asked a question or the conversation was relevant to his company. The rest of the party passed in about the same manner, and eventually you were back in Seto's car getting ready to drive home. 

Seto gripped the steering wheel tightly, leaning back in the leather seat and closing his eyes. He let out a loud sigh, and you wondered how many of these parties he had to attend and how stressful they all were compared to this. You observed him quietly, allowing him a moment to relax in silence, wondering if you should try to comfort him in any way. After a moment, his shoulders slumped a bit and he sat upright, opening his icy blue eyes to glance over at you. You offered him a concerned smile, which he didn't respond to, instead returning his gaze to the front windshield and starting up the car. 

You weren't really sure what to say, or if you should say anything, on the way home. The drive to the party had been pleasant and full of talk, and normally you didn't mind the quiet between you two, but this was an uncomfortable silence, at least for you. Your gaze kept moving between Seto and the road in front of you, trying to gauge if he was feeling any better or any worse based on his speed and body, but you were having a difficult time reading him in the darkness of the car. 

You found yourself worried about how you did as his date at the party, toward the end he seemed to not care for you much but you weren't sure if that was because you had done something wrong or just the building stress he was under. You wanted to ask, but were a little worried he wouldn't want to talk about it. You tried to focus on the sound of the Ferrari engine (which wasn't hard since it was so fucking loud) but it only made you more anxious. 

Finally, you just decided breaking the silence was better than working yourself up, and with nothing else weighing on your mind, you asked, "How was I?"

"Hm?"

"As your date. Was I okay?"

Seto tapped his index finger on the steering wheel lazily, taking his time to answer you. You watched the highway blow by, curious how much farther the drive way back to Domino City, since you didn't recognize any of the signs along the way. When you looked back over at Seto, his finger had stopped tapping, and you fought back your anxiety. If it was taking this long to answer, there must have been a lot you did wrong to process. 

"I heard you tipped the bartender." He finally alleged. You couldn't stop yourself from letting out a laugh, feeling a little embarrassed that he had found out.

"Yeah I wasn't sure if I should, so I just... kinda did."

"We don't tip in Japan. Don't you know that?" He asked, as if he were talking to a child.

"Well yeah, but..." You frowned. In your momentary panic you had forgotten that tipping culture was not a thing in Japan, contrary to it being a big part of life back in the States. You propped your elbow up on the door's armrest and leaned your face into it to rub your temples with a groan. Now you were almost positive Seto would not be inviting you to any more of his fancy business parties.

"Shit." You muttered. 

Quiet descended in the car once again. You began growing exhausted from the day's events, from making a fool of yourself crying in front of Seto and half the student body at DU, to making a dolt of yourself at a party everyone knew you didn't belong at. Seto sighed loudly, breaking the brief silence between the two of you. 

"Other than that you did fine," he offered, "Stop worrying." 

You managed a nod in response as you felt the car roll to the stop. Seto put the car into park and turned it off, prompting you to pick your head up off your hand and open the door. He led you up the stairs to your apartment with a hand on the small of your back, which you found incredibly comforting. When you reached your door, you turned to face him with a small smile. 

"Do you want to come in?"

"No. I have work to do." He replied, his face stoic. 

"Oh," you nodded, but couldn't imaging going to work after such a stressful evening. "Thank you for inviting me. And... for forgiving me for being a jerk, even though I'm not sure I deserve it." You let out a weak laugh and rung your hands together. 

Seto responded with a drawn-out hum, studying your face in his usual cool demeanor, and you had to wonder if he had ever learned the words 'you're welcome’. You followed his eyes as they wandered from your face to the rest of your body, noting that he was doing that a lot tonight. You were obviously used to him taking his sweet time looking over your face, your posture, and on occasion what you were wearing, but today every time he searched you it had felt... different. Like he was focusing on the curves of your body more than anything else. His eyes lingered on your bare shoulders and your breasts in a way you had never seen them do before on multiple occasions tonight. You hoped he liked what he saw, but desperately wished he was better at communicating.

"Well," you finally said, starting to feel a bit awkward standing in front of your door with him eyeing you like a commodity, "Good luck with work. I uh, hope the rest of your night is less stressful." You looked to your door and entered the code to unlock it. You reached for the knob when Seto's hand grabbed yours, stopping you dead in your tracks and stupefying you. 

You tilted your head up to face him and ask him what was wrong, but watched in awe as his face quickly closed the distance toward yours, his lips on yours faster than you could react, standing still in shock for a moment. Trapped in the moment, all you could focus on was his soft mouth against you, the taste of rum and bitters still lingering ever so lightly on his lips. The soft breath he exhaled through his nose tickled your own, sending a shiver through your body, and causing you to lean against his chest to keep balanced on your feet. You felt his hand turn over into yours, lacing his lithe fingers into your own, and you responded with a gentle squeeze. You closed your eyes and practically melted into him, longing for his lips to never leave yours.

After a moment, he broke the kiss and pulled away from you, and you let out a heavy breath you didn't realize you had been holding in. You were disappointed in the newfound lack of warmth against your lips, but fondly noted his large hand entwined with yours. 

"Are you sure you don't want to come in?"

Seto seemed to pause to consider your offer again, his sapphire blue eyes locked with your own, desire dancing in them. He sighed and shook his head, slowly pulling his hand free from your grasp. 

"I have work to do," he repeated, much to your disappointment, but you nodded. His work had to come first. "Good night," he murmured as he turned away and began down the hallway toward the exit. 

"Good night, Seto," you called back, and let yourself in the door to replay the past minute over and over again in your head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to emphasize that while on the outside Kaiba seems calm and collected, he's actually pretty impulsive. The man blew up fucking Alcatraz when he was 16 and almost killed like twelve people. He almost killed himself in Duelist Kingdom. He built a space elevator for reasons I won't spoil for those of you who haven't seen DSoD yet. The man is an impulsive child. 
> 
> He also constantly needs to be in control, so, to me, him being the one to kiss the reader makes a lot of sense. And I'll be expanding on that more in future chapters, too. 
> 
> Other notes: The dress I describe in the story is a dress I actually made last semester for my Functional final. It's the dress I'm wearing for my formal Blue Eyes cosplay, so I've got photos to help you visualize it!   
> https://twitter.com/InappropriCat/status/840710514510581760
> 
> I do hope you lovelies enjoyed this chapter, and it was worth the wait and the cliffhanger! Please let me know what you thought, especially of the kiss! I'm curious if you think it's in/out of character for him, if you agree that he's as impulsive as I see him, etc. I'd love your feedback! (I'd also love just squeeing comments, those are great too!) 
> 
> See you in the next chapter!


	17. Highway Robbery

Mokuba was, of course, the first person to hear about what had happened. He called you early in the morning to ask why his brother had been in a terrible mood the past few days, then all of a sudden perfectly fine last night. You vaguely explained that you had basically pissed him off, but apologized and he invited you to the fancy party. He demanded every single detail after that-- excluding details about the kiss of course-- and he was frankly as shocked as you had been when you told him Seto was the one who made the move. 

"I knew he liked you but I didn't expect him to kiss you!" Mokuba could barely contain his excitement as the two of you waited for your brunch in a quaint little diner-style restaurant. 

"You knew?" You asked, taking a sip of your orange juice.

"Well yeah of course. With the way the two of you acted around each other it was pretty obvious! Other than me, I've never seen _Nii-sama_ so comfortable with anyone, and the way he treats you is obviously nicer than he'd treat a friend. I think that's why he was trying to be so nice recently." 

You sighed, "I should have noticed sooner." You'd felt horrible ever since you realized the reason he'd been so nice to you the night you verbally tore into him was because he was legitimately comfortable with you. Because he liked you.

"God I'm an asshole." 

"Yeah." Mokuba was completely unapologetic, and you didn't expect him to be. You treated his brother like crap, and you would have been surprised if he weren't at least a little upset with you for it. "Honestly I'm pretty sure you and _Nii-sama_ are only people who didn't know you like each other." He stated, as if he thought the two of you were utterly ridiculous for acting so dense. 

The waitress brought over both your plates of food, and the two of you dug in. 

"Fuck I missed Belgian waffles." You exclaimed, "This is good."

"So," Mokuba began with a grin after he had shoved a few bites in his mouth, "What are you two gonna do now?"

"What do you mean?" You took a bite of your eggs.

"Well, are you guys dating now?"

"I don't know. I mean, I haven't talked to him since last night and we didn't exactly discuss it...." You frowned and picked up the salt shaker, sprinkling a generous amount onto your eggs.

"Do you want to date him?" He was obviously hungry for any information you'd give him, and you wondered if he acted this way around Seto's other girlfriends. Though you didn't know if he'd ever had a girlfriend before, it wouldn't surprise you if he hadn't, not only was his attitude pretty off-putting, even when you got to know him, but he barely had time for anything outside of work. You thought back to last night when the man who asked how the two of you met said you were "lucky" to have gotten paired with him, and he was probably right. If you hadn't been partners it's not like he'd have the time to hang out with you, most all of the time the two of you spent together was for school.

"I mean, of course I do," you said, "If he'd have the time for me."

"What do you mean?" 

"Well the guy is the president of Kaiba Corp after all," you mumbled, "Does he even have time for a relationship?" You took another bite of your waffle and glanced out the window the two of you were sat next to, "Has he ever had a girlfriend?"

He finished chewing what was his mouth and gave you a smile, "No, _Nii-sama_ is hopeless when it comes to relationships."

"Yeah I figured as much," you laughed.

"So when are you hanging out again?" 

You hummed, "Well I don't have a visitors pass anymore, and I'm not certain if he unblocked my number or not yet," You took a sip of your orange juice, "So your guess is as good as mine." 

Mokuba whipped out his phone, "I'll ask him!"

"No Mokuba that's--"

"Done!" 

You sighed and finished off your eggs, "Now he's going to think I'm desperate if I have to go through you to talk to him." 

"I only asked if he unblocked your number don't worry!" Mokuba assured you, shoving another bite of his omelette into his mouth. Just then your phone buzzed, and you fished it out of your back pocket. 

_Yes._

_Showoff_ you typed back with a grumble, but you felt relieved that you were able to talk to Seto again. Though you hadn't really needed it, it was also confirmation that what happened last night wasn't just a spur-of-the-moment thing he regretted. You showed Mokuba the screen and he grinned. 

"I think you two are good together." 

You chuckled, "If I'm being honest I'm a little surprised you're not jealous." 

"Why would I be jealous?" Mokuba cocked his head to the side and finished off his omelette.

"Well, with how busy he is I can't imagine you get to spend a ton of time with him as it is. So if he and I started dating or something, wouldn't that cut into the time you get with him?" 

He pursed his lips in thought, his eyes moving around the room as the wheels turned in his head, "I mean, I guess so. But it's not like _Nii-sama_ will stop spending time with me. And you make him happy." He smiled up at you, "Happier than I've seen him in a long time."

You frowned, "What do you mean?"

"Well I hardly see him smile anymore. And since he and I were adopted by Gozaburo, he's pretty much been stressed all the time."

"Well I mean unless we're counting smirks, I think I've seen him smile _maybe_ once?" You hummed.

"It's not just that. He jokes around with you, and you distract him just enough that it takes some of the stress off," Mokuba replied, "Other than me, I don't know anyone who can joke with _Nii-sama_ like you do." 

You smiled a little, memories of the banter you shared with him on countless occasions lingering in your mind. And after hearing how supportive Mokuba was about the potential of you and Seto being an item, you were in a pretty good mood. The waitress came by and he handed her his credit card before you even had time to pull yours out, much to your dismay. 

You finished off your orange juice as the waitress returned with Mokuba's card, and the two of you headed out of the diner shortly thereafter. You slipped on your cardigan and regretted not bringing a heavier coat as the cold December wind nipped at your skin. 

"Do you want a ride home? I can call the limo." 

"Nah," you shook your head, "My place is only a couple blocks away I should be fine." You pulled your beanie down over your ears and shoved your hands into your cardigan. wrapping it around you. "Where are you headed? Isn't your house a bit far to walk to?"

"Oh I'm headed to Kaiba Corp." Mokuba sighed, "There's a meeting in half an hour I need to be at." 

"Gross, why?"

He flashed you a grin, "Well I am the vice president after all." 

You laughed. He wished you luck getting home without getting frostbite, and you wished him luck with the meeting as the two of you parted ways. Between spending brunch talking to him and Seto texting you, you were in a fantastic mood. There was a spring in your step, and you really wanted to spend the rest of the afternoon doing something productive.

You were excited to get home and start pattern drafting on a dress you had been wanting to make but hadn't had the time for during the final few weeks of classes. You made your way up the stairs, but had a very wrong feeling in your stomach when you reached your floor. You walked to your door to find the lock above the doorknob smashed, and panic began to set in. It looked like someone had broken into your apartment while you were out for the morning. For the moment you were just praying your cats were okay. You threw the door open and ran inside, calling for Dandelion and Ciri as you searched your apartment. Ciri came out immediately, mewling in a clearly uneasy voice, and you had to search for a few minutes before you found Dandelion hiding under your bed. You called the police once you knew they were both safe, and took a minute to calm yourself down before setting about to searching the house for anything that might have been stolen. 

The first thing you noticed gone was your desktop computer, which had been in your room, along with the monitor. Your tablet, which had been on the desk next to your computer, was also gone. Your television and your Amazon Fire were both gone from the living room, which were all your electronics aside from your laptop, which you had sandwiched between your bed and your bedside table when you had gone to sleep last night, so it hadn't been in plain view. The only other thing missing from your home was your couch, which was more confusing than anything else. The love seat was older than you, and super heavy, not to mention worth absolutely nothing. How did they even get it out of here? 

While you waited for the police to arrive you took some photos and complained on Facebook. Your parents were the first to call you, freaking out and asking if you were safe and what had happened. You had to spend a few minutes calming them down and assuring them you were alright, and that you had only had a few things stolen. By the time the police showed up to file a report, you had a handful of messages from friends and family in the States making sure everything was alright. 

Once you had talked to the police and gotten everything sorted, you had to call the landlord and let her know the lock to your door was broken, which then turned into you having to call a locksmith, but the locksmith wouldn't be able to come out for another three days. When you called your landlord again to tell her the locksmith wouldn't be able to come out right away, she basically suggested you use a chair to keep anyone from coming in for a while. 

By that time, Mokuba had texted you asking what was going on, and you explained someone had smashed your passcode lock. You also gave him a list of everything that was missing, per his request. First he apologized for bringing you out of the house for brunch, which you assured him was probably safer than you being in the house at the time. Then, he suggested you come stay with him and his brother at their mansion, which you assured him was a bit overboard and that you were fine. Once he was finally satisfied that you were safe-- and would not be moving into his house-- he said he had to go back to work and you set off to finish taking care of everything.

You contacted your insurance company and told them what happened, and they explained to you all the steps they needed to take to get you the money to replace your stuff. You went around your house again with your laptop and estimated the value of everything that was stolen, along with taking photos of your now fairly empty home. You called them again, and they told you it would be at least another month before all the legal ins-and-outs were sorted and you would get your money. 

You thought about re-buying all your stuff and then "paying yourself back" with the insurance money, but that would be over three-thousand dollars, which you did not have. You then contemplated at least buying yourself a desktop to replace your old one so you could play all your games, but that would still be about one thousand to be more powerful than your laptop, which you still couldn't afford. 

You eventually found yourself lying on the floor in the middle of your living room with Dandelion laying on your chest, answering concerned messages from friends who had seen your Facebook post, and trying to keep yourself calm. Logically, there was nothing you could do about your stuff, and you were relieved that you and your cats were safe, but you had still had your home broken into and you were pretty upset.

You heard your door open and froze, for the moment terrified that your home was being broken into again. You held Dandelion close to you, trying to keep breathing steady, unable to will yourself to move from the floor. You stared upside-down at the entrance to your living room as the footsteps got closer and closer and--

"What are you doing on the floor?" A very cross Seto Kaiba spoke down to you. 

You let out the breath you had held in and stared up at him, “Oh hello Seto good to see you too, thanks for knocking.” You said sarcastically. 

“What are you doing on the floor?” He repeated and folded his arms over his chest, unamused.

"Well, my couch is gone so I figure the floor's a good place for snuggles," you said, trying to play it off like you had not been scared shitless for the past few seconds. You picked Dandelion off of your chest and picked yourself up off the floor, "What are you doing here? Mokuba said you guys had a meeting."

"I ended it early." He replied curtly and scanned your very empty living room, then locked his eyes with yours, "You're surprisingly calm."

"Oh trust me, I'm screaming on the inside," you half-joked, "But I'm safe and my babies are safe. The rest is just... stuff. Expensive stuff, but I can replace it eventually." You shrugged, and sauntered past him into the kitchen, "Want a drink? Assuming they didn't steal my coffee-maker."

He sighed followed you into the small kitchen. You could feel his gaze on your back as you scooped more coffee grounds than you would usually use into the coffee filter. You turned on the coffee maker and turn around to face him, leaning against your cabinets and resting your palms on the edge of your countertop to support your weight. You studied his face to try and figure out why he had cut his meeting short to come over when Mokuba surely told him you were fine. His face gave nothing away, however, a perfect stony gaze set across his smooth features. 

“So, what are you doing here?” 

Seto frowned, and you could tell he was not prepared for you to call him out on his sudden appearance in your home. You wondered if he had just assumed you would be happy to see him-- which you were of course-- and not question his motivations. 

“I came to see what was stolen.” He finally responded.

“Nice try,” you pushed yourself off the counter and danced over to the fridge, “But I already texted Mokuba a list of everything per his request, which I’m sure he showed you.” 

Seto clicked his tongue and narrowed his blue eyes at you. You allowed a smirk to spread across your face while your back was turned to him and reached down to the bottom shelf of the fridge and pulled out your caramel coffee creamer. You straightened yourself out and returned your face to a neutral state before turning to look at him. His piercing gaze peaked out at you from behind the brown bangs that swept across his face in an arranged mess. You tried your best not to giggle at his attempt to hide his reasons for stopping by, and made your way to the cabinets above the coffee maker to pull out two mugs. 

“It couldn’t possibly be that you were worried about me, could it?” You asked in a playful voice. You poured a healthy amount of the flavored creamer into yours and couldn’t fight the grin dancing on your face. As you turned back around to head to the fridge again you let your eyes rest on Seto, his face was turned to the side so he wasn’t looking at you, and you could tell he was chewing at the inside of his cheek. His eyes were cast downward to the floor, hidden beneath his bangs that he had let fall in front of them. 

You set the coffee creamer back onto the countertop and walked over to him slowly, cautious to test your boundaries but very much enjoying teasing him. You wondered how far he’d let you go with it, normally you could tell when he had had enough of your playful mockery but now that the two of you had kissed, you weren’t sure anymore. You brought your fingers up to his face and gently swept his bangs out of his eyes, fingertips ghosting over each soft strand of hair. His blue eyes darted to meet yours, and you did nothing to hide your satisfied grin. 

“Looks like I hit the nail on the head, hm?” You teased, allowing your hand to freeze so a majority of his bangs were balanced on your fingertips. You were careful your fingers didn’t touch his face, not wanting to invade his personal space too quickly. The frown on his face deepened, and you knew you had caught him, which only made your smug grin grow wider, “The great Seto Kaiba worried about little ole’ me. Why, I’m honored.” 

He brought his own hand up to push yours away gently, and you obligingly took a step backwards. He wasn’t denying your hypothesis, and he hadn’t smacked your hand away or looked particularly uncomfortable, which you took to mean you had not overstepped your boundaries. You sauntered back over to the coffeemaker as it finished brewing and poured some into each of your glasses. You brought his mug over and he took it without a word, then you leaned back against the wall next to him with your own coffee and began to blow on it. The two of you were not touching, but Seto was close enough that you could feel the heat radiating from his arm next to you. You wondered how such a slim man could let off so much body heat. After some blowing, you brought the coffee to your lips to test the temperature and take a sip. 

“Move in with me.”

You brought your mug away from your face and coughed, trying to get the coffee out of your windpipe before you could process what he had abruptly requested. No, requested was the wrong word, his voice was full of authority and he had practically ordered you to move into the Kaiba mansion. If he were anyone else, you would have laughed it off as a dumb joke, but he was not joking and you couldn’t figure out his motives.

“I think you may be skipping a few steps there,” you managed between some lingering coughs.

“What?”

“You can’t just kiss a girl then move in with her the next day,” you smirked up at him, stifling another cough in your throat. 

He sighed and took a sip from his own mug, clearly unamused by your quip. He tapped a long pointer finger on the side of the mug and turned his head to peer at your front door through the hallway. Ciri had since come into the kitchen and nuzzled against Seto’s long leg for attention, leaving strands of white fur all over the hem of his black pants. He furrowed his brow at her and she mewed up at him in response, which made you giggle. 

“Your lock is broken,” Seto finally began, “It’s not safe for you to stay here when anyone can just walk in. Pack your things.” 

“Nah, I can’t,” you shook your head and gestured down to Ciri, who had taken to nuzzling between Seto’s ankles and shedding all over both legs of his pants, “I’m not leaving them here alone.”

“Then bring them, too.” You could hear in his voice he was growing impatient with you.

“For a few days? By the time they get used to your mansion I’d take them away again, that would be bad for their mental well-being.” 

“Why are you being so difficult?” Seto groaned and leaned his head back so it fell against the wall and you took the opportunity to drink some of your own coffee while you thought up a reply. Ciri had gotten bored with the lack of affection Seto was showing her, so she began nuzzling around your legs instead, hoping you would be more inclined to pet her. 

“I’m always difficult,” you grinned up at him and scooted yourself down to oblige Ciri’s requests for love, petting her behind her ears.

“I’m not letting you stay here alone with a broken lock.” Seto frowned down at you and drank some more of his coffee. Your heart began to flutter in your chest a little, his concern for you making you feel safer after having your belongings stolen. 

“You could probably drop your name for the locksmith and he’d be over in five minutes,” you suggested. 

“Don’t you think I already tried that?” He scoffed and pulled out his phone, “He’s out of the country and your landlord refuses to let me hire anyone else to fix the lock. I even tried threatening her with bankruptcy but she’s a stubborn fool.” 

“I’m honored you’re trying so much for me,” you chuckled. You stood back up and took another sip of your coffee, glancing to his phone as he quickly typed out a lengthy text. “Whatcha doing?”

“Since you’re being bullheaded and insist on staying here,” he shot you a glare as he hit send on the text you couldn’t read very well, “I’m having Isono bring some things over for me.”

“Oh,” you nodded and furrowed your brow, taking a moment to process what he was saying, “Wait. You mean you’re staying here?”

“That’s what I just said.” Seto finished off his coffee and pushed himself away from the wall, heading over to the sink to place the empty mug in it. 

“Wait hold on you don’t have to do that. With all my stuff gone there’s not even anything to do,” you followed him over and set your own half-full mug on the counter.

“I can work.”

“Where? My couch was stolen.”

“I hear you have an empty desk now,” a smirk barely tugged at the sides of his mouth as you both began to realize he was going to win.

“I-- I mean I guess,” you frowned, “But what else are you going to do here? Shower and sleep?”

“Yes.” He made his way down the hallway and toward your bedroom. You followed behind him quickly, not exactly opposed to him staying with you but still a bit miffed that he was basically inviting himself over.

“Seto I only have one bed, what are we gonna do, play rock paper scissors to see who sleeps there every night?” You folded your arms over your chest as the two of you stopped in the doorway. Seto’s eyes wandered from your desk, now missing a desktop and monitor, then to your unmade full-size bed which Dandelion was sleeping on. 

“We’ll both fit fine, I don’t see the problem.” He raised an eyebrow in your direction, the smirk dancing on his lips more smug than ever. Despite the events last night and the fact that he was the most impulsive man you'd ever met, you still thought he was being a bit more forward than he should. You wondered if he was making everything work just because of his pride, just to prove that he had made a good decision to stay with you for the next few days. 

“Well if you insist,” you sighed, resigning to his victory this time, allowing yourself a mental pat on the back for forcing him into this position in the first place. You were admittedly elated that Seto was going to spend the next few days with you, though not under ideal circumstances, but you did your best to hide your excitement from your face. You were trying to play it cool, so you fought your goofy grin with a smirk to rival his own, leaning against the door frame and facing him. “I guess it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve slept on you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I totally understand that while this scenario is possible, it's certainly unlikely. But, I think part of the fun of writing a story is that I can exaggerate and put the characters in unlikely situations. I mean, being in a class with Seto Kaiba is already a pretty unlikely situation in of itself. But I hope it doesn't seem too weird or disjointed.
> 
> So remember how my first portfolio project didn't work out so well? Yeah I've made the snap decision to change my entire collection over spring break because I hate that suit so much. Currently I'd drawing ten ballgowns based on Duel Monsters cards because I am nerd trash. We got the God cards, Blue Eyes (which is already made), Red Eyes, Dark Magician, Polymerization, Mirror Force, and Pot of Greed (what does it do?!?!). Ballgowns are more fun to make anyway. 
> 
> Downside to that is I now have to make like 2-3 ballgowns in under 2 months, along with all my other projects. God help me. 
> 
> I hope y'all's spring break is more relaxing than mine, if you're on spring break. I started mine off with PAX (which was amazing and wonderful and so much fun!) and will probably end it with impaling myself on my sewing machine. Overall 10/10 IGN: just the right amount of suicide.
> 
> ALSO: I have 2 beta keys for the Xbone Gwent if anyone wants one, I'm already in the PC beta so they're useless to me. Just comment here if you want it ;)


	18. Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "When love is not madness, it is not love." --Pedro Calderon de la Barca

You opened the door to a tall man in a suit and sunglasses carting two large suitcases behind him. From the seemingly worried look on his face and his timely arrival to your doorstep, you assumed that he was Isono. You smiled and gestured for him to come in, eyeing the suitcases that were much larger than the size of a normal travel case. You wondered what he could possibly need in them if he was only staying with you for three days. 

“Is everything in there?” Seto sauntered out of your room and glanced between Isono and the bags, standing near you to make room in the hallway. 

“Of course, Seto- _sama_. I checked everything myself.” Isono replied. You made a mental note to yourself of how Isono referred to him as ‘Seto-sama’ rather than ‘Mister Kaiba’ like most of his other employees. You wondered how long he’d been working for Seto and who exactly he was. Seto seemed satisfied by his answer and instructed him to bring the suitcases to your bedroom. You watched Isono make his way down the hall still curious what could possibly be in them.

“What did you have him pack?” You asked.

“Just the necessities.” He replied and leaned against the wall. 

“Necessities? Seto when I go somewhere for the weekend I bring a tote bag and my makeup case.” You glanced up at him with a grin, “Those are much larger than a tote bag.” 

“They’re necessities.” He repeated, glaring down at you. 

“You know the definition of necessities right?” You teased and lightly elbowed him in the side.

“Of course.” He scoffed.

“So all that’s in there is shampoo, a toothbrush, some clothes, pajamas--”

“I don’t wear pajamas.” 

You opened your mouth to continue but stopped yourself as you processed his words. Your eyes widened a little, eyebrows raised, as the image of Seto in your bed sans pajamas flashed in your mind. The two of you would be in the same bed tonight, and though you were originally planning to wear pajamas since he was there, now you weren’t so sure. You could feel your face growing warm.

“Close your mouth, you’ll catch flies,” Seto looked at you with a smug smirk. 

You closed your lips as Isono walked down the hall toward you two, Ciri trailing behind him. You noticed some white fur on his pant legs and littered on his sleeve cuffs and grinned. Seto must have noticed as well, because he crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow down at your darling cat. 

“Seto- _sama_ , your bags are in the bedroom and I’ve placed your toiletries in the bathroom.” Isono said, though you couldn’t keep your eyes on his face since Ciri had taken to nuzzling his legs for attention. 

“Good.” Seto replied, “Make sure Mokuba does his homework while I’m gone.” 

“Of course, sir.” Isono bowed his head a little and made his way to your front door. You picked up Ciri so she wouldn’t follow him out of your apartment despite her mewls of protest.

“It was nice to meet you!” You smiled up at him cheerily. Seto pushed himself off the wall next to you and turned to head back down the hallway toward your bedroom. 

“Oh, you as well,” Isono replied, looking a bit surprised by your friendliness. 

You turned to follow after Seto as Isono left your apartment, having to move your legs faster to catch up with his long strides. He moved around his black suitcases on the ground to return to your desk where he had set up his laptop to work. You plopped yourself down on the bed near him so you could see what he was working on, letting Ciri hop off the bed to sniff around his bags. 

“You two seem close,” you said.

“Do we?”

“Yeah. At least, you don’t treat him like all your other employees.”

“Isono has worked for us since I became president,” Seto said absently, reading over a report on the company’s new augmented reality game on his laptop, “He’s very loyal.”

“What does he do for you?” You asked, leaning forward a little to glance over the report.

“A myriad of things. He’s a business advisor, my bodyguard, I have him act as master of ceremonies when Kaiba Corporation hosts tournaments,” Seto glanced at you from the corner of his eye, “I suppose you could call him my right-hand man.”

You hummed in response and he returned his attention to his work. Though nothing in his words would give it away, his tone was softer than he normally used. Aside from Mokuba, you’d never heard him talk so fondly about someone. You could imaging Isono as a kind of uncle to the brothers, it wouldn’t surprise you after their father’s death. 

You decided not to press any further, a while back Mokuba had confirmed your suspicions that Seto did not like talking about family, and you didn’t want to push him. You scooted closer to the edge of the bed and leaned forward enough so your chin rested on his shoulder, continuing your quest of testing boundaries. You peered at his face to see him raise an eyebrow at your actions, but he didn’t move to get you off. 

“What are you doing?” Seto asked, his eyes still on the report.

“Leaning on you,” you grinned.

He huffed, “I know that.”

“Why did you ask then?” You sang as your grin widened.

He shook his head and continued reading, one of his long fingers tapping lightly on the desk next to his laptop. You had been observing his body movements long enough to know that meant he was thinking hard on something. You wondered if it was to do with the work on his laptop or you. You tried to read over the report he was looking at, skimming through to try to find the interesting parts, but you were dismayed to find there were no interesting parts. 

You spent a while trying to get the report to hold your interest but after about ten minutes you could feel your eyes glazing over. You wondered how Seto could possibly keep himself interested in such boring reports. You admired how much of a hard worker he was. A soft smile crossing your lips as you mused on his dedication to his job, and you leaned your head over a little so it rested against Seto’s. Again, he glanced at you but did not push you away. 

Your cell phone buzzed on the bed next to you, but you didn’t move to pick it up, enjoying the comfortable silence between the two of you. Seto was warm and smelled nice, and the rhythmic tapping of his index finger made you feel calm. You closed your eyes and focused on the sound, a warmth washing over you. It was almost enough to make you forget the reason he was here, the earlier events of your home being broken into. 

“Seto?” You mumbled. 

He made a soft _‘hm’_ to let you know he was listening. 

“Thank you for being here. It makes me feel safer.” You opened your eyes and glanced up at his face. His eyes flashed to meet yours, the rest of his features completely stoic. He didn’t say anything in reply, but it didn’t matter. You just cared that he heard your appreciation, and hoped he didn’t regret his decision to stay with you for the next few days. You closed your eyes again and allowed yourself a nap after the events of the day. 

 

You awoke to Seto nudging you off of his shoulder, and glanced at the clock on his laptop. You had only gotten about an hour of sleep, but it was already getting to be time to think about dinner. You didn’t have much for two people in the fridge since you weren’t expecting company, so you would probably need to catch the subway and get some groceries. 

“You’re boney,” Seto grumbled, rubbing his shoulder as you lifted your head off of him.

“Sorry,” you smiled and stretched your shoulders back so they popped, “Are you hungry?”

He hit send on an email he had been typing before he spun your chair around to face you. He crossed his arms over his chest and watched you as you picked up your phone to check your messages. You had posted an update that you were safe and a friend was staying with you, so there were only a few people still asking if you were alright. 

“What do you have in mind?” He asked. 

“I dunno,” you pulled up google on your phone to search for some recipes, “Whatever you want, I can pick up some stuff from the store and make something while you work.”

“You sound like a housewife.” 

“Don’t get used to it,” you grinned up at him playfully. “I have a few cookbooks in the kitchen if you wanna look through them and pick something?” You clicked your phone screen off and stood up to head to the kitchen and Seto followed behind you quietly, observing your apartment more now that he was staying in it. 

“When is the last time you dusted?” 

“Uh, never? I don’t even own a duster.” You replied flippantly, entering the kitchen and pulling some cookbooks from the cabinet above the sink. You plopped them down on the counter and grabbed one for yourself, an Asian cuisine cookbook your parents had bought you as a gift. Seto retrieved a second book from the pile and the two of you searched for something to eat. 

Eventually you both decided on a pasta dish you had never made before, and you snapped a photo of the ingredients to take to the store. You got ready to head out, grabbing your wallet and pulling on a winter coat and some shoes.

“You’re content with leaving me alone in your home?” Seto eyed you as you were about to open your front door. 

“What are you going to do, raid my panty drawer?” You smirked up at him, “Just make sure to fold them back up when you’re done!” You opened the door and waved, hearing him scoff in response to your teasing before you closed the door behind you. 

The trip to the grocery store was uninteresting, but relaxing. You spent the subway ride listening to your favorite band and occupying your thoughts with Seto. It was better to replace the anxiety you still felt from your apartment being broken into with calming thoughts of him. His presence in your place until the lock would be fixed made you feel much safer, and you were thankful he had invited himself in. Plus, after your kiss last night, you were looking forward to continuing to test your boundaries with him. 

You wondered if today’s events meant the two of you were dating. You had kissed, he was staying in your home, and the two of you were sharing a bed tonight; so of course you assumed you two were an item. You couldn’t imagine he was the kind of person who would like the label ‘boyfriend’, he would probably make fun of you if you called him that. Regardless, you wanted to confirm if he wanted a relationship with you. 

You spent your time in the grocery store and on your way back to your apartment thinking about how to ask if the two of you were dating. Though you toyed with the idea of asking in a joke, you figured he would appreciate you just asking outright. The relaxing trip to the store turned into one that made the wheels in your head spin. You were getting nervous of how he would answer you the longer you thought about it, but you couldn’t manage to push the question out of your head.

By the time you made it back inside your apartment you were wound up. You tried to think of the best time to pop the question to Seto, but every time you imagined asking him you just got more and more anxious. You kicked off your shoes and brought the groceries into the kitchen, resolving to bury your feelings in cooking. Seto didn’t come out to greet you as you began making the pasta, you assumed he was deep in work for the company, and you were getting a little tired of being alone with your thoughts. So, between preparation steps for dinner, you texted some of your friends back in the States to keep yourself distracted. 

The half hour of cooking passed by quickly with the help of your friends sending over some quality memes. But as you plated the food and brought it into your bedroom where Seto was on his laptop, you began to feel the anxious pit in your stomach again. You climbed over your bed and set a plate on the desk for him, startling him out of his work. He glanced at the food, then to the clock on his computer, and looked as if he hadn’t noticed how much time had passed. You bit back a grin and made yourself comfortable on the edge of your bed, setting your own plate in your lap and peering over to see what he was working on. 

It looked like some specifications for the virtual reality pods you knew the company had been developing for the past few years. You began eating your pasta and watched him switch between the specs and a document he was writing notes in, waiting for him to take a bite and let you know how it tasted. You liked it, maybe the sauce could have used a little more salt, but it was pretty good for your first try. 

The longer you watched him, the more the seed of anxiety in your stomach began to grow. You again ran through the ways you could ask him if the two of you were a couple, the ways he could respond. You noticed your thumb had begun tapping at the side of your fork and as you tried to stop it you became increasingly aware of your nervousness. _What if he says we are dating? Will anything change? Is there even a point to asking? If he didn’t like me he would tell me, right?_

You took another bite of your pasta and tried reading over the specification document again to distract yourself. You could understand vaguely what was written, but without knowing any of the details of the pods you had a hard time putting it all together. 

_What if he says we aren’t dating? Does that matter? Would he ever even use the word ‘dating’? But he’s the one who kissed me so he must want a relationship, right? Unless he regrets it._

Seto kept his eyes locked on his laptop screen as he reached for his own food, elegantly swirling the pasta onto his fork and taking it into his mouth. You stared at him in anticipation, curious if the food was to his liking. As if his reaction would somehow influence the worries rushing through your head. 

“It needs more salt.” He said flatly. 

You quickly picked up your plate and placed it on the desk behind his and shot up off the bed. You clambered out of your bedroom and into the kitchen to grab a salt shaker, your heart racing more than it should have been. Really, you knew you were freaking out, but you couldn’t help it. Whenever Seto entered your thoughts he amplified your emotions in a way that you had never felt before. You took the salt shaker from the countertop and quickly made your way back to the bedroom, climbing over your bed again and practically slamming it on the desk. 

Seto raised an eyebrow in response to your inordinate behavior, which only made you feel more jittery. You had been doing a fairly good job of hiding your concern until he had spoken, but now all the energy you had pent up showed itself. Your eyes locked to his, hands gripping at each other to try to steady them. You knew you were acting ridiculously but you weren’t able to calm yourself down.

“Seto are we dating?” You blurted before your brain could process the words leaving your mouth. 

His eyes practically bore a hole through you as he stared at you, processing your unexpected question. You stared back, half expecting him to not answer you, but determined to push for one if need be. Now that the question was out there and you’d already made an idiot of yourself, you wouldn’t back down until you had a reply. 

“That’s what you’re worried about?” He asked, as if your question was an idiotic one. 

“Yes. Are we dating?” You repeated, unwilling to let him change the subject. 

“Dating is a juvenile term.” He replied curtly. 

“Would you prefer the term couple? In a relationship? Or should I ask if you’re courting me?” Despite your nervousness, or perhaps because of your nervousness, you were still able to make a joke of his stubbornness. 

He sighed and shook his head at you. He picked up the salt shaker you had placed on the desk and began sprinkling it onto his pasta, eyes averted from your gaze. You bit at the inside of your cheek and crossed your arms over your chest, trying to push down your nervousness. He took his sweet ass time mixing the salt into his food evenly and taking another bite to test. You wondered if he was making you wait on purpose.

“Do you want to be in a relationship?” He finally asked after swallowing his bite, seeming more satisfied with the taste this time around. 

“Well, yeah.” You didn’t hesitate. 

Seto turned the chair a little to look at you, crossing his own arms to match your posture, sapphire blue eyes again locking with yours. For a while he just stared into your eyes, searching them. You didn’t move, a breath caught in your throat as you anticipated his next words. With the silence ringing in the air, you could only focus on the anxiety filling your stomach and spreading up to your chest. 

“Alright.” He said.

“Alright what?” 

He sighed again, “Must I explain everything to you in detail? Alright, we are in a relationship.”

You froze for a moment, the words running through your head again and again. 

_We are in a relationship._

A smile began to spread across your face.

_We are in a relationship._

Your arms dropped from their crossed position across your chest and your eyes wandered Seto’s stoic features. Excitement bubbled inside of you, completely washing over your previous anxiety, and filling you with more energy than you had before. You hadn’t felt this euphoric since you received your acceptance letter from Domino University in the summer.

 _We are in a relationship._

You leaned across the chair into him and wrapped your arms around him in a hug, burying your face into the side of his neck. His muscles tensed momentarily in surprise from your sudden display of affection, but he quickly recovered.

“Thank you.” You murmured into his neck, closing your eyes and allowing yourself to absorb everything about the moment. 

Rather than offering a ‘you’re welcome’ Seto hummed in response, as he always did, and wound an arm around you. The feeling of his hand on your waist made you feel protected, and through it may have been naive of you to think so, in that instant you felt like you could stay like that forever. The position was awkward for a hug, but you couldn’t care less. 

To you the moment was perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now you may be asking, "Stella you're writing a lot of fluff lately what gives?" Well, school's turned into kind of a mess for me so I need something happy to focus on. I'm trying really hard to keep everything in character and not do too much fluff, and the chapter I'm writing right now certainly has a better balance. So I hope I haven't made you guys wanna puke yet or anything from all the sugary sweetness @-@
> 
> Oh also! I wrote a blog post on how I made my Blue Eyes cosplay, some of you were interested in that. So uh, give it a read if you've got nothing better to do! https://www.azumiidesigns.com/blog/2017/3/14/blue-eyes-white-dragon-yu-gi-oh-duel-monsters-cosplay-write-up
> 
> I hope you guys enjoyed this update! Please let me know what you thought of it, I'd love the feedback! <3


	19. The First Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got tipsy whilst writing this chapter. Boy oh boy do I love me some Appletinis~
> 
> Also: School's getting pretty busy for me right now. I have my final portfolio presentation in a month and have 3 ballgowns to crank out between now and then. And since I've about caught up with chapters I have pre-written I need to slow down with this. Updates are going to be only every Tuesday now, at least until I've confirmed I get to graduate. (help me)

You and Seto spent the two hours after dinner working on your respective laptops, very rarely speaking to each other, filling the quiet between the two of you with the ‘Early 2000s Pop’ station on Pandora, which you were convinced was driving him mad. You were having a lovely time reliving your childhood and humming along to the golden age of Backstreet Boys, curled up under your fleece blanket with a warm mug of tea in one hand and scrolling through Twitter with the other. 

At some point, Seto had taken off his coat and hung it in your closet, so he sat at your desk in one of his many tight black turtlenecks. Though you were more than happy to stare at his shoulders every once in awhile, you caught yourself inwardly laughing at his glorified mullet of a hairstyle. Like much of Seto’s fashion sense, though you recognized it looked good on him (and only him) that did not mean they were good choices. If you described your boyfriend to anyone who had never seen him as a skinny, six-foot-one Japanese man with blue eyes, a mullet, and an affinity for huge shoulder pads, you were certain they would get the wrong idea. 

_Your boyfriend._

You took a sip of your tea and felt a grin lingering on your face, the same grin that had been a semi-permanent fixture on you for the past couple hours. In fact, your cheeks were starting to hurt from the goofy smile that returned each time his earlier words came to mind, which of course happened every time you so much as thought about him. 

_We are in a relationship._

Part of you thought you really needed to stop thinking about it and occupy your thoughts with something more productive, but you could not, and frankly did not want to. You were in one of the happiest mood of your life, silly as that may have been. 

“I want a snack,” you announced, setting your mug onto the bedside table and sliding your laptop off your thighs onto the edge of the bed. “Do you want a snack?” 

“We just ate.” Seto muttered, and turned his head slightly to glance at you. 

“Like two hours ago,” you waved him off, “Which means it is now snack time! What would you like?” 

Seto shook his head and returned his attention to his laptop. 

“I’ll put you down for some cashews.” You pushed yourself off the bed and wandered into the kitchen to find yourself something equally as delicious, before deciding cashews were as good as you’d get. You climbed onto the countertop to reach the cashews that you had stupidly put on the top shelf, then hopped down and brought the can into your room and popped the freshness seal open. 

You noticed the Usher that had been playing through your laptop speakers when you left had been turned off, and you had a feeling you knew the culprit. You hopped back onto your bed and returned to your two-hours-earlier position sitting close to Seto, grabbing a few of the salted nuts and setting the rest onto the desk next to him. 

“You got something against Usher?” 

“I have something against everything you’ve been playing for the past two hours.” He grumbled. 

You mock gasped, “You’re telling me you have something against Britney Spears, Maroon 5, my boy JT--”

“All of them.” 

“Christina Aguilera--”

“I will not say all of them again.” 

“Train--”

“If I say Train was fine will you stop this nonsense?” He huffed.

“I will not stand for you calling Train anything short of awe-inspiring.” You replied, and you were dead serious. You reached for some more cashews and tried to keep the grin on your face from looking too silly.

“Then I will call them nothing,” he frowned at the can of nuts next to him, then at his laptop screen. The reports he had been reading earlier were now replaced with various charts and spreadsheets that looked to be the pre-production stage of scrum, a game development method you had used in school.

“So,” you chirped between nibbles, “Whatcha doin’?”

“Working.” 

“I’m not blind,” you rolled your eyes, “I was hoping for a more specific answer.” 

He sighed, “Currently, I am looking over early design concepts for potential game projects.”

Nailed it. You pumped your fist in the air in self-congratulation before looking back to Seto.

“That sounds fun! I used to do that for school. Well, I used to listen to really ambitious game design majors pitch really complicated concepts and then explain that none of us could program them.” 

He hummed, juggling attention between you and his work, but clearly favoring work. You had begun getting tired of the lack of music in the room, so you leaned back to reach for the trackpad on your laptop to switch to a classical station to please Seto. Instead, you noticed a Skype message from your parents, who wanted to video call to make sure you were alright. 

“Ey Seto, I know this proposal usually comes a bit later in the relationship but wanna meet my parents?” You chuckled. 

“What?” 

“Oh they want to Skype with me,” you said, “But if it’ll bother you I can go into the living room instead?” 

“You can stay,” he sighed, “But I’m working so don’t expect much conversation.” 

“I never do,” you said teasingly and winked up at him. You grabbed your laptop and pulled it into your lap, typing a confirmation message to your dad and waiting for the video call. Seto had just long enough to refocus on his work before the obnoxious Skype call tone broke the silence, and his concentration. He let out a muffled groan and glared at you, to which you could only offer a shrug. You answered the call, and grinned at the smiling faces of your parents huddled in front of a low quality webcam. 

_“Honey are you okay?”_ Your mother immediately asked, worry in her voice despite her smile. 

“Yes yes, I’m fine. I’m great!” You replied, switching to English with ease. 

_“You’re great? You just had your apartment broken into.”_ Your dad raised an eyebrow. 

“Oh, uh. Right. Yeah, that’s not why I’m great,” you pursed your lips, “Anyway, my friend’s staying over until the lock gets fixed so everything’s fine!”

 _“Oh, who’s your friend?”_ Your mom asked. 

You grinned up at Seto and he sighed in response, pushing your desk chair back until it hit against the bed. You could tell he hadn’t been able to concentrate on his work since the start of the video call. He leaned over just slightly so he was in the frame of your built-in webcam, a stoic mask painted perfectly on his face. 

“This is Seto Kaiba,” You said, pointing with your thumb to him. 

_“Does he speak English?”_ Your mom grinned and waved. 

“Of course I speak English.” Seto scoffed, your native language sounding perfect coming from his lips. 

_“Wait a second, Kaiba? Where have I heard that name before?”_ Your dad asked, racking his brain at the familiar name. 

“I am the president and CEO of Kaiba Corporation.” Seto replied coolly, and you had to bite back a giggle at his glowing pride. 

_“President of your own company?”_ Your mom asked, shocked, _“But you look so young--”_

 _“Oh that’s right!”_ Your dad interrupted and nodded to himself in recognition, _“Kaiba Corp was one of our weapon suppliers when I was in the military.”_

“Yes I’m sure we were. America was a large buyer of our military products,” he crossed his arms over his chest, “But _my_ company no longer deals in weapons manufacturing. It is now one of the largest gaming companies in the world.” 

Your parents looked at each other, unsure of what to say in response to Seto’s assertive quip, and still seeming a bit stunned that he ran such a large company at his age. They were also likely equally shocked that you had made friends with the man, and he was now staying with you until your lock was fixed. Admittedly, you were still in a similar state of disbelief at his presence in your home. 

_“So… how do you two know each other?”_ Your mom offered. Your dad, meanwhile, seemed suddenly deep in thought.

“Oh we took Calc II together,” you replied, “We got paired up for a group project--”

“You mean you paired yourself with me for a group project,” Seto corrected mockingly. 

“Semantics.” You waved him off with a flick of your wrist and a growing grin.

 _“Didn’t the loveseat get stolen?”_ Your dad asked, snapping out of his thoughts. 

“Yeah, couldn’t tell you why, or how they even got it out of here.” You shrugged. 

_“Where is your friend--”_

_“Seto.”_ Your mom interrupted, and you caught the frown that flashed on Seto’s features at the sound of his first name being used so casually. You wondered briefly if your parents were aware of last name usage in Japan, but then again, you had done the exact same thing to him on the first day of class. 

_“Right, Seto. Where is he sleeping?”_

“The bed.” You pointed behind you. 

_“Then where are you sleeping?”_

“Uh… the bed.” You muttered, considering telling your parents that Seto was actually your boyfriend, hence why the whole sleeping in the same bed thing wasn’t a big deal. Or maybe that made it a huge deal. You glanced up at his impassive face, about to announce your relationship status before you thought about it again. Would Seto appreciate you telling your parents that you were dating? He had said you were, so you assumed it was official, but that didn’t necessarily mean he wanted anyone to know about it. About you. In the eyes of the public, at least, Seto Kaiba could do a lot better than you, an absolute nobody fashion design major from America. You were probably an embarrassment to him. 

_An embarrassment._

You fidgeted in the silence that had fallen over the four of you, and caught Seto looking down at you with a raised eyebrow. You weren’t sure what kind of an expression to offer him, so you settled on an uncertain one. 

_“Told you you should have brought the air mattress.”_ Your dad finally said jokingly. 

You let out a chuckle, as did your mother, while Seto shook his head at the joke. He had to have realized where you got your sense of humor and ability to change the tone of an uncomfortable room with only a few words. Your dad was quite the hoot. Shortly thereafter, your parents said their good-byes and hung up, and you shut your laptop and set it next to you on the bed and sighed. 

“You don’t want them to know.” Seto stated sourly. 

“Know what?” You looked up at him. 

“That we are in a relationship.” 

“Huh? No that’s not….” You frowned and turned your gaze to the floor, “I wasn’t sure if you wanted them to know.” 

“Why would I care?” He asked. 

“Oh, just since you’re like a public figure or whatever, and….” You stopped yourself and bit at the inside of your cheek. 

“And?” He was getting an annoyed edge to his voice. 

“And you might be embarrassed of me.” You muttered.

He was quiet for a moment, though you weren’t sure what kind of a face he was making since you refused to look anywhere but the hardwood floor. All you could see of him were the black socks on his feet. The quiet didn’t last for very long, broken by a long, exasperated sigh. 

“You really hate yourself, don’t you?”

“Low self-esteem runs in my family,” you chuckled darkly.

“Why exactly would I be embarrassed of you?”

“Well,” you willed yourself to pick your head up and look at him, “There’s not really anything special about me, I’m not amazing looking or anything, I’m kind of an asshole, not to mention my etiquette is terrible. I just… you could do better than me.” 

The corners of his lips turned downward into a frown, and yours did the same as you tried to fight back a sigh, but you had a difficult time. You did not enjoy saying bad things about yourself aloud unless it was in self-deprecating humor, which this was not. It was just a list of bad traits. You let out the sigh and regretted not making a joke of the whole thing, it would have been less awkward for both of you most likely. 

“You’re very intelligent.” He stated flatly, and you blinked in surprise at the sudden and uncharacteristic flattery. 

“Was that… are you complimenting me?” 

“I am stating facts and proving your statement wrong.” He replied.

“Well it sounded like a compliment.” A small smile broke onto your face.

“You’re also attractive.” 

“Okay this is getting weird,” you giggled.

“Etiquette can be taught, I can schedule you some lessons if it really bothers you.” 

“You skipped over the asshole part,” you said after another giggle.

“I can’t argue with it,” he shrugged, “You are an asshole.” A smirk tugged at the corners of his lips, the teasing in his voice now apparent. 

“Am I at least a funny asshole?” 

“Hilarious.” He deadpanned, and the previously small smile on your face grew into a sappy grin. You stood up and stretched your back a little, deciding to go ahead and take a shower so Seto could as well before it got too late. 

“So you’re not embarrassed of me?” You asked softly, the smile still on your face, but the nagging voice in your head still demanding validation despite the light tone the conversation had taken. 

“No.” He replied and got up from the desk chair to tower over you. You moved your head to look up at his face, his sapphire blue eyes sparkling in the artificial light of your bedroom. He wasn’t really that close to you, but you could just feel his body heat. It was enough for your heart rate to pick up and your face to flush, but not enough to distract you from the inner voice that still assured you that you weren’t good enough for him. 

“You don’t believe me.” He said, his voice low. Your breath caught in your throat for a moment, and you wondered how sometimes Seto could be so dense and unable to read you, and other times know exactly what you were thinking. 

“It’s not…” your smile faded from your face as you searched for the worst to convey how you felt. Though you didn’t believe you were good enough for him, you did believe he wasn’t embarrassed of you. You weren’t quite sure where the two connected and separated. You regretted asking the confirmation question, as it didn’t really do anything to reassure you, and negated his earlier attempts (and success) at cheering you up.

“What’s that American saying? Actions speak louder than words?” He asked huskily, though it didn’t seem like he was really asking.

You nodded. 

He snaked an arm around your waist and leaned his head down to capture your lips in a kiss, catching you off guard and holding you tight against his chest. You gripped at the front of his shirt to steady yourself on your tiptoes and fluttered your eyelids shut. All you could feel was the warmth of his chest against yours, the strength of his large hand on your waist, the softness of his lips. All you could feel was Seto. 

His kiss was not as gentle as it had been the first time. This time he was hungrier, and the second you assumed he would pull away from you, his mouth closed in on yours again. His teeth nipped at your bottom lip, eliciting a surprised giggle from you. Had you not known any better you would have thought he’d kissed hundreds of other girls before, he seemed like he knew exactly what he was doing. 

_Well he is a genius_ , you smiled into his kiss as his tongue brushed against the spot he had just bit. The contrast between roughness and softness in his lips’ embrace made you dizzy, and you leaned deeper into him to keep your balance. Having to crane your neck up to meet his height was a little uncomfortable, but you could hardly care with the euphoria you felt in his grasp.

When he pulled his lips away he kept his face close, his blue eyes locked with yours, eyebrow raised slightly as if to silently ask ‘How was that?’ Cocky bastard. You took a few seconds to steady your breathing, fingers still clutching his shirt, before glancing down at his mouth. You bit your lip and tried to stifle a giggle, but couldn’t keep the grin from your face. You had completely forgotten you were wearing lipstick. 

“What?” 

“You look good in red,” you chuckled, eyes fluttering back up to meet his. 

Confusion briefly flashed over Seto’s face before he glanced down at your deep red lips and put two and two together. He frowned and pulled himself away from you, gently prying your hand from his shirt and smoothing it out on his way to your bathroom. You grabbed some clean clothes from one of your laundry hampers before you trailed after him, the grin still set on your face. He made it to the mirror before you and let out a sigh, eyes narrowed at his reflection as he observed himself. 

“You don’t like it?” You teased, “I think it’s your color.”

“Get it off.” He grumbled as his eyes snapped to you. You sauntered over to the shelf in your bathroom and got him a makeup removal wipe. His sudden display of affection and the humorous aftermath was enough for you to push away any feelings of self-loathing, at least for the night. Though you did not expect Seto to act this affectionate very often, even if the two of you were now dating, you could get used to it happening every once in awhile. 

“Now that I know you like kissing me so much I’ll be sure to seal my lipstick better.” You cooed as a way of saying thank you, your grin turning into a smirk as you handed him the wipe. He scoffed and shook his head in response while he scrubbed to get the red off his lips. You pulled a clean towel down from the shelf next to you and set it on the vanity as he finished removing your lipstick from his lips. 

“You’re showering?” He barely glanced at the towel that had appeared next to him. 

“Yeah, so get out. Meeting my parents is one thing but seeing me naked is too much for one night,” you winked. He shook his head again at your teasing and tossed the makeup removal wipe, now covered in red, into the garbage can under the sink. He exited your bathroom, shutting the door behind him, and leaving you alone to your bubbly thoughts of him.

You stepped into the hot shower and let the running water hit your back, occupying its entirety with happy thoughts of your boyfriend and how uncharacteristically sweet he had just been. You wondered if he would act like that more often now, though you admittedly found it a little strange. 

You slipped out of the shower and dried yourself with the towel, frowning when some cat hair from it stuck to your body. You inspected the rest of the towels on the shelf and picked out a couple that were free of cat hair so Seto would not have the same problem. You shimmied into your clean clothes and wrapped the towel around your head, then exited of the bathroom.

“The bathroom’s free if you want to take a bath tonight,” you said as you entered your bedroom in a long tank top and a pair of shorts, rubbing your hair dry with a towel. You crawled onto your bed and snatched your phone from the charger to see an unread message notification from the younger Kaiba brother. 

_Has Nii-sama been nice to you?_

Well now, that might explain his uncharacteristically sappy behavior. You raised an eyebrow and looked over at Seto, who was laser focused on more early design concepts. Which of course meant it was the perfect time to break that laser focus by embarrassing him. 

“You wouldn’t know anything about this would you?” You grinned and put the phone down on his keyboard. He glanced down at the message and sighed, a frown gracing his lips.

“Why would I?” He muttered and slid the phone off his laptop. 

“Oh I dunno, it would just explain why you were so nice to me earlier,” you teased, “Am I wrong?”

“Not completely.” He sighed. 

“Oh?” You scooted forward on the bed so you could peer over his shoulder and into his eyes through his mess of bangs. He leveled a glare at you to try and get you to drop the subject, but you merely replied with a taunting grin. 

“Mokuba insisted I be more,” he lifted his fingers to make air quotes, “sensitive to your feelings after such a traumatic experience.” 

“Sometimes I think that kid’s more mature than the two of us combined.” You hummed.

“Mokuba? Mature?” He scoffed. 

“I mean, it takes a good degree of maturity to have the kind of empathy he has,” you shrugged, “He’s more sensitive to people’s feelings than a lot of people our age I know. Including us.” 

“You seem fine at sensing my feelings.”

“Well you’re pretty easy to read honestly,” you hummed. His fingers twitched in response, which you took to mean either he did not agree with your observation, or he didn’t like that you thought him an open book.

“I doubt that.” He finally muttered. 

“You tap your fingers when you’re deep in thought, your fingers twitch when I say something that catches you off-guard, you sigh when you don’t want to answer a question or you think I said something stupid.” You said, eager to prove how readable could be. “You smirk when you amuse yourself, glare when you’re annoyed, scowl when you’re angry,” you leaned close to him and his muscles tensed slightly. So you used the opportunity to prove your point, and whispered into his ear, “And you tighten your jaw when you know I’m right.”

You allowed yourself to giggle softly through your nose, moving your lips down to where his ear met his jaw, and planting a short, soft kiss on him. You quickly pulled away before he could say anything, feeling quite proud of yourself. His eyes darted to your lips, his frown relaxing just slightly when he realized you had already washed off your lipstick, along with the rest of your makeup. 

“I prefer you like that.” He grumbled. 

“Without makeup?” 

“Without lipstick.” He returned his eyes to his laptop screen. 

Which meant he liked you with the rest of your makeup on. You hummed and slip your phone off the desk, leaning back to fall onto your bed and lifting your phone above your face to browse through Instagram. You used your free hand to reach across the bed and stroke Dandelion’s long, soft fur as he slept on a pile of blankets and comforters. You lay like that for almost an hour, allowing Seto to focus on finishing his work, before you felt him get up from his chair. 

“Where are you going?” You asked. 

“Shower.” He said shortly, stretching his shoulders so they popped. 

“There’s a clean towel on the vanity,” you said propping yourself on your elbows to watch him crouch down to his suitcases to pull out his toiletries. 

“I had Isono pack my own.”

“What, too good for my towels?” You grinned. 

“Yes. They’re rough.” He huffed and pulled out a pure white towel, monogrammed with his initials on the corner in light blue.

“I think they’re pretty soft,” you frowned, having to keep yourself from sounding too interested in his very expensive looking towel. He turned to you with a raised eyebrow, then held out the towel in his hand for you to touch. You reached out and ran your fingers over the pure white fluff, immediately enthralled in the texture. It was way softer than any of your towels, and probably softer than any of your clothing as well. You pursed your lips in defeat as he pulled it away, a triumphant smirk on his face. The thing probably cost a fortune, and at a second glance at his suitcase you noticed two other towels that looked exactly the same as the one in his hand. 

“Rich boy,” you groaned and plopped yourself back down onto the bed, rolling your eyes at the ‘necessities’ he had packed. Seto exited your room with a half-chuckle, and you lay in your spot for a moment before moving to lay against your pillows and pulling your laptop onto your thighs. It was nearing ten-thirty and you were starting to feel tired, but since you were officially on break you didn’t want to go to sleep too early. Unfortunately, you were a weak person who succumbed to your desires of sleep very easily, and you could barely manage to stifle a yawn before you fell asleep curled up next to Dandelion. 

You awoke briefly to Seto moving your laptop off of you and placing your fleece blanket over your body, but didn’t have the energy to do anything but nuzzle deeper into your pillows. You mumbled something, but in your groggy state you weren’t even sure what you said. 

The next time you stirred it was from shivering. Dandelion had long since left your side and Ciri was asleep on one of your feet. You blearily looked around the bed for your phone before spying it on your bedside table plugged into the charger. You reached up to turn on the screen and check the time, which read back 2:46 in bright pink.

You turned the screen off, but a blue-tinted light still remained in your otherwise dark room, coming from Seto’s still open laptop screen. You could make out his silhouette against the brightness, his hair now dry, the only sound he made the clicking of keys as he typed. 

“You’re still working?” You muttered in English, too tired to translate in your head. You reached down to the mass of comforters and blankets you kicked off every night to pull one over your freezing body. The sound of typing stopped in its tracks, and Seto turned the desk chair partially to look over to you. 

“Yes. Did I wake you?” Seto responded in English as well, to both your relief and surprise.

“No, I’m just cold,” you sighed, wrapping the blankets around you but still shivering despite them. “You should come to bed though, it’s almost three.” 

“I have a lot of work to do.” He said curtly. 

“It’ll still be there in the morning,” you mumbled sleepily, grabbing yet another blanket to pile onto yourself. You closed your eyes and nuzzled back into your pillow, quickly drifting back to sleep.

You weren’t sure how much time had passed, but at some point you stirred again when the bed dipped under Seto’s weight. You barely opened your eyes to noticed the room was completely dark, the bright light from his laptop absent. You hardly registered his presence, and you weren’t quite sure if you were dreaming or not, until you heard him mutter something under his breath.

“There’s an entire bed over there you know.”

You grinned to yourself, or at least you think you did, and were much too tired to move to the edge of the bed so he had more room. Seto was forced to inch his body closer to yours, and though he wasn’t touching you, you could feel his body heat against your back. The newfound warmth and companionship quickly lulled you back into a peaceful sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is far less fluffy I promise. Fluff is just so fun to write ):
> 
> I'm sickkkkkkkk I hate this. Being sick is actually the worst feeling because I just want to be productive but all my body wants to do is sleep forever. I'm so tired but I have so much to do. I'd be okay with just dying at this point @-@
> 
> Update: Also! I'm doing a ballgown giveaway on my facebook page and you can win a custom designed ballgown from it! If you're into that kinda thing you can enter here: https://www.facebook.com/AzumiiCosplay/photos/a.1411528099116921.1073741830.1390410554562009/1876337105969349/?type=3&theater


	20. King of Game Development

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains hints of physical abuse. It's only for a paragraph, and won't be expanded upon just yet this chapter, but I know some people can be sensitive to that so, fair warning.

You finally awoke in the morning to a warm bed, a dim grey room, and a crick in your neck. The clouds outside completely covered the sun, leaving a lack of warm light in your bedroom, and making it harder for you to will yourself out of bed. You buried your face into your pillow to muffle a yawn and fought back the urge to snuggle into the warmth on your back, before you remembered where it was coming from. 

Slowly, carefully, you turned your body around so you were facing the young CEO who had found his way onto your mattress at some point during the night. He had one of your blankets covering his body, but one of his bare shoulders peaked out from underneath, which meant he was not lying when he said he did not wear pajamas. His unstyled hair was a mess against your white pillow, bangs tousled wildly in his face. His lips parted just enough to breathe through, and all of his facial muscles were relaxed. It was the second time you had seen him sleeping, and it was just as intriguing as the first, a complete one-eighty compared to his usual tense, icy demeanor. 

You gingerly wiggled out of your bed and picked up your phone to confirm the time, nearly seven, before stretching your arms over your head and creating a firework of pops as you cracked your spine. You decided to allow Seto another half hour of sleep and set off into the kitchen to prepare a pot of coffee and some breakfast. Most of the texts asking you to confirm you were safe and sound after yesterday morning’s events had stopped, but you still had to answer a few more as you tried to decide what food to prepare. 

You scooped some extra coffee grounds into a filter and started the coffee maker, then rinsed off some of the dishes leftover from last night before finally deciding on bagels. You waited until the coffee pot was about halfway full before popping some plain bagels into your toaster and digging the veggie cream cheese out of the fridge. The smell of coffee began to percolate through the kitchen, eliciting another yawn from you as you remembered how poorly you had slept for the first half of the night. 

One of the bagels popped out of the toaster and you snatched it up and about threw it onto a plate to avoid burning your fingertips, then spread a generous helping of the savory cream cheese onto each half. You poured yourself a mug of coffee about two-thirds full, then finished it off with some flavored creamer, and took a long few sips to wake yourself up.

“Mmmmm coffee,” you drawled, setting down your mug and setting to work on eating your bagel. You popped a second into the toaster for Seto and reached for another clean mug but found it just a little too far back on the shelf for you to grasp. You barely touched the handle and you could almost maneuver it forward, but not quite. You considered climbing onto the counter to grab it but didn’t want to move the rest of the dishes out of the way. 

I could probably jump and grab it you thought, taking another sip of your coffee and finishing off your bagel before making your move. You hopped up and brushed the mug with your fingers again, inching it barely closer to the edge, but not quite close enough. You hopped again, pushing it further from you, and frowned. The third time you hopped, you did so higher and more aggressively, and were sure you would be able to grab the mug. 

Until it flew off the edge of the shelf and bounced off the countertop, before crashing loudly onto the linoleum kitchen floor and shattering. You stared down at the remains of your mug in awe for a moment, eyes wide. 

Oops. 

You sighed and knelt down over the ceramic shards the littered the floor, beginning with picking up the larger chunks and carting them to the garbage can under the sink, then moving on to some of the smaller pieces. Your broom was on the other side of the kitchen, the other side of the sea of broken ceramic, and in bare feet you didn’t feel like risking stepping over it. You pulled a few paper towels down from the countertop and used them to sweep up most of the shards before you felt safe grabbing the broom and doing a last sweep of any lingering danger. 

“What happened?” A tired voice broke through the ringing silence of the gloomy morning as you dumped the contents of the dustpan into the garbage. 

“I broke a mug, sorry to wake you.” You said, placing the broom back into its corner and turning your attention to Seto, who stood in the doorway to your kitchen dressed only in a slim pair of blue pants. His chest was completely bare, and you about did a double-take to stop in your tracks and stare at him. There was no visible body hair on either his arms or his chest, typical for an Asian male you thought. Though he was not overly muscular, he was very toned, and you could clearly see the curves of each of his abdominal muscles. It looked like if you tried to punch him, your hand would just bounce off like a rubber ball on tile. Your eyes wandered a little lower to the sides of his stomach and you could see the faintest outline of what you called “the v” in America. Holy shit he was gorgeous. 

“Enjoying yourself?” He raised an eyebrow to your stare. 

“Very much, yes.” You smirked back, letting your eyes linger over his figure one last time before returning to the countertop to pull Seto’s bagel out of the toaster. You spread some cream cheese over the bagel then turned and handed the halves to him. He took the bagel wordlessly and his scrutinizing gaze traveled over the specks of vegetables in the cream cheese spread before he took a bite. 

You looked back up to your now-open shelf and the clean mugs that were all now much too far back for you to reach without scaling the counter. You sighed and began pushing your coffee mug and empty plate, but stopped when you felt Seto’s chest pressed lightly against your back. You could feel his skin against your own bare shoulders, warm and smooth. You tilted your head up to watch him reach to the shelf that contained your mug collection, pull one down effortlessly, and set it in front of you. 

“Thanks,” you mumbled as he pulled away from you, his face completely impassive. You filled the mug with pure black coffee and handed it off to him, then reached for your own and took a sip. You turned your body so you were leaning against the edge of the countertop and watched him take a bite of the bagel before sipping at his coffee. His brown hair was still a mess, bangs littered chaotically around his face, but that only served to make him look more well-rested than usual. 

The two of you enjoyed your coffee in content silence, you studying every inch of his face and body whilst trying not to gawk, and him mostly ignoring you and staring into the mug in his hand. Moments later a chime came from his back pocket, and he reached in to dig out his cell phone and flick on the screen, then type out what you assumed was either a lengthy text message or a very short email. His eyes flashed up to meet yours as soon as he was finished, and he clicked the screen off and slid his phone back into his previous place. 

“Clean your room.” He said abruptly. 

“Excuse me?” You set your empty mug onto the countertop and crossed your arms over your chest. 

“Clean your room.” He repeated, voice as cold as before. 

“Oh I heard you,” you rolled your eyes, “Why are you telling me to clean my room?”

“It’s a mess.”

“So?” You asked defiantly, “Half of it is your massive suitcases--”

“I’ll take care of those, you will make your bed and pick up everything else that should not be on the floor.” He ordered. 

“Fuck off,” you replied, it was much too early for you to deal with him barking orders. “You’re already in the midst of the mess so what’s the point?”

He pushed himself away from the wall he was leaning on before quickly crossing the small kitchen to tower above you. You tilted your head to look up at him, insubordination burning in your eyes to meet his authoritative glare. 

“There will be a guest over in an hour, and since your loveseat was stolen, the only place to work is your bedroom. Clean it.” He growled. 

“So you took the liberty of inviting someone to my apartment without asking me and now you expect me to clean up for them?” You were somehow equally shocked as you were unsurprised at his behavior. 

“I am not leaving you here alone, where else do you suggest we work?” He scoffed. 

“Seto I’m not questioning the logic of your decision, I’m annoyed you didn’t ask me.” You could hardly believe you had to explain such a simple concept to the man. “If you had asked first I would have been cool with it, and would have probably offered to clean up anyway, you know.”

“If you’re fine with it, why does it matter if I ask or not? The outcome is the same.”

“Are you serious?” Your eyebrows had raised to about the highest point you thought possible.

He said nothing, which meant he was, in fact, serious.

“I am not one of your employees.” You said slowly, trying to keep your voice level. 

He opened his mouth to counter but quickly closed it and simply stared at you. His brow furrowed in a seeming mix of annoyance and thought, and you bit the side of your tongue to keep from clicking it against the bottom of your mouth. The fact that you had to explain to him you were his girlfriend, not hired help, was baffling. The genius prodigy who stood in front of you was an absolute moron. 

“You’re right,” he muttered begrudgingly, his voice so low you wondered if he even wanted you to hear him admit his wrongdoing.

“Yeah, I know,” you sighed and shook your head. “Whatever, if someone’s going to be over in an hour I guess I should get to work.” You slid to the left and weaved around him, your shoulder brushing against his arm as you walked past him to get to the bedroom and begin cleaning. Though you seriously did not want to tidy up your room, you didn’t exactly want a stranger sitting on your unmade bed. You wondered exactly how unprofessional it was for Seto to arrange for someone to come over to your home, especially because he made it sound like it was a business partner. Either he knew the person well, or he just didn’t care about appearances; you were having a hard time fully believing either option. 

You entered your room and made a beeline for your laptop, logged into Netflix, and put on a documentary about Vikings to entertain yourself while you cleaned. You started off by making your bed, then picked up all your dirty clothes from the floor and chucked them into an empty laundry hamper and shoved it into your closet. You grabbed all the scraps of fabric from garments you had made from school and packed them haphazardly in an empty cardboard box you had neglected to throw away after moving nearly four months ago. By that time, Seto had come into the room and went to put away his suitcases, but you had already taken the liberty of zipping them up and stacking them in the closet so they were out of sight. 

The sounds of your Viking documentary stopped abruptly, and you snapped your head to your desk where your laptop sat to see Seto standing over it, finger on the spacebar. You cocked your head to the side and tried to keep from looking too annoyed with him after he had ruffled your proverbial feathers. At least he had admitted it. 

“Do not tell me to fuck off again.” He said sourly. 

You finished closing up the cardboard box of fabric scraps and plopped it in the corner of your bedroom with your other sewing bins before you fully turned to him. You crossed your arms over your chest and directed a raised eyebrow to him, unwilling to dignify him with a response. Hadn’t you just explained the whole ordering you around thing not twenty minutes ago?

“This is the second time you’ve told me to fuck off,” Seto’s low baritone of a voice grumbled, “Do not make it a third.” 

You had to dig through your memory to recall the first time you’d told your boyfriend to fuck off, admittedly it was something you said more often than the average Joe, but it was usually jokingly or sarcastically directed toward your guildies or long-time friends in the States. ‘Fuck off’ was not taken nearly as lightly in Japan as it was in the West, and it was especially hard to sound like you were jesting whilst saying something so insulting when you were not as familiar with Japanese as you were with English. So when had you said it?

Oh, right. The first day of calculus, when you had taken the liberty of assigning yourself as his partner. He had said you were beneath him or something equally insulting, so you had most certainly meant to tell him to fuck off. Why exactly, you wondered, was it alright for him to insult your intelligence, but you couldn’t tell him to fuck off?

“I’m not one of your employees,” you simply reminded him, not quite in the mood to argue who could insult who. “Quit ordering me around like you own me.” 

“I’m not--”

“You are,” you interrupted, turning away from him to organize a stack of papers on your bedside table and pull a folder out of your school bag. Though you were still upset with the man’s seeming constant need to be in control, which was apparently now all focused on you, you still felt like you should have apologized for telling him to fuck off. Was it a big deal? No, not really. But it was big enough that he was pointing it out, and it seemed like it really affected him.

You finished putting the papers into the folder and slid it into the bedside table, shoving the school bag back under your bed. You turned back to face him and swallowed hard, still trying to decide if you should offer him an apology or just hope he would drop the argument altogether. You were uncomfortable with the bad atmosphere surrounding you two, especially after how nice he had been to you last night. It was like you were both pulling each other to one extreme end of the spectrum or the other, and you longed for the normalcy of comfortable silence and playful banter. 

Seto had changed out of his blue pants in favor of a pair of fitted black ones and was bent down over his suit case searching for a shirt. Your eyes flickered over his back as he stood back up, faced away from you. A pattern of long scars decorated his skin, long since healed over. He didn’t seem to notice you saw them, and as he slipped the white shirt over his back you turned your head away so he wouldn’t know, pretending to occupy yourself with throwing away some small scraps of paper on your desk. 

You knew those scars. You had a friend with scars just like those. A friend whose parents liked to drink too much. A friend who got the belt when he misbehaved.

When you turned back to look at him, he was buttoning the white tailored shirt over his upper body, eyes focused on the window over your desk. You watched his long fingers do up each button, his movements slow but elegant. He pulled up his collar and leaned down to his open suitcase again and pulled out an indigo tie before tying it around his neck. He obviously noticed you had turned to face him this time, but refused to make eye contact. 

Now that you were keen to the record of abuse that adorned his skin, you really wanted to apologize. Not that the scars had anything to do with you ever telling him to fuck off, but it still seemed right to offer the apology, if only to make yourself feel better. 

“I’m sorry,” you said finally, as he adjusted the white collar of his shirt over his tie, “I won’t tell you to fuck off again.”

His blue eyes snapped down to meet yours as he finished fixing his shirt and his hands dropped to his sides. Now that your room was tidied up you thought you should probably get dressed as well, though you weren’t sure what to wear since you had no idea who would be coming over. Honestly, the fact that a complete stranger and possible hot-shot business executive would be over at your dinky apartment in half an hour was unnerving. Especially since your place was even dinkier after the break-in. 

You joined Seto near the closet and looked over your nicer clothes that you kept on hangers, untouched since you had moved in. You decided to pull down a flowy, somewhat dressy blouse that you could pair with some skinny jeans, that way you’d look like you weren’t trying too hard. You dug your favorite jeans and a nice bra out of a pile of clean clothes in the corner of your closet-- a pile was more convenient than folding them and putting them away-- and set off to the bathroom to get changed. 

Once your clothes were on you cracked the bathroom door open and started on your makeup. Seto joined you at the vanity shortly after and plucked his toothbrush from the cup you kept yours in. Neither of you said anything, Seto’s expression was unusually unreadable so you couldn’t tell if he was still upset with you. But hey, you had apologized, so as far as you were concerned if he was still angry he’d just need to get over it. He finished brushing his teeth and used a jar of styling gel he had brought in to fix his hair and tousle his bangs so they looked the same as they usually did. Meanwhile, you were doing your best to perfect your no-makeup-makeup look since you didn’t have the time to spare making sure both wings of your eyeliner were exactly the same. 

“So who’s coming over anyway?” You asked, growing uncomfortable and bored with the silence. 

“One of my business partners,” he replied. 

“I assumed as much,” you finished putting mascara on your lashes and reached for a tube of chapstick, “But who--”

Your questions was interrupted by a knock at your door, and Seto quickly exited your bathroom to answer it. You followed after him and looked around his body to see a young man who looked nothing like a ‘business partner’. Actually, he looked about your age, at least a few inches shorter than you, dressed in a black wife-beater underneath a half-buttoned blue shirt and a pair of loose-fitting jeans. He had a laptop bag slung over his shoulder, and his hair was potentially the most eccentric you’d seen in Japan thus far, a mix of blonde, black, and purple strands spiked upward. You couldn’t decide if he looked cool or ridiculous, honestly. 

“Hey Kaiba!” The young man greeted cheerfully. 

“Yugi.” He responded simply. The boy’s name sounded kind of familiar, though you weren’t sure where you’d heard it before. The two of them looked over to you and Yugi offered you a bright smile.

“You must be Kaiba’s girlfriend!” He said. 

You nodded and introduced yourself politely, still intrigued that the spunky looking boy who stood before you was actually Seto’s business partner. 

“This is Mutou Yugi,” Seto said to you, “Even in America you should be familiar with him.” 

“Oh, aren’t you some famous gamer or something?” You asked, turning the familiar name around in your head again. 

“Yup! King of Games,” Yugi grinned. “Kaiba and I are designing a game together, though I’m sure he already told you that.” 

You didn’t want to admit that the two of you had been too busy arguing all morning for him to explain who Yugi was or what game they were designing. So instead you shrugged it off and invited him inside, apologizing for the sparse living room caused by a recent break-in. Yugi slipped off his boots and the three of you headed toward your bedroom, where you wandered to your laptop. 

“I’ll be in the living room if you need me,” you said politely, “I don’t want to distract you guys.”

“Don’t distract us then.” Seto grumbled, and you had to bite your lip to keep from saying anything. Yugi glanced between the two of you but did his best to look like he hadn’t picked up on Seto’s tone and kept smiling. Seto finally looked up at you and clearly noticed your annoyance, because he sighed and shook his head. “I want you here anyway.”

“Why?”

“Kaiba corporation games are very popular in Japan, but not in Western markets,” he gestured to you, “You’re a Westerner. Your insight would be… helpful.”

You weren’t sure if you should consider his statement a compliment because he thought you could be of use, or an insult by the way he said ‘Westerner’. You set your laptop back down and nodded, taking a seat on your bed. Seto sat down in your desk chair and Yugi sat at the foot of your bed with his legs crossed. Ciri immediately hopped onto the bed with you two and made a beeline for Yugi, nuzzling at his hands and demanding immediate attention. You watched as he began scratching under her chin, the grin still plastered on his face. Though he wasn’t nearly as energetic as Mokuba, he was equally happy and personable.

“So how do you two know each other?” You asked while you waited for Seto to load up whatever they were currently designing on his laptop. Yugi began pulling out his own laptop as he regarded your question. 

“Oh, Kaiba and I went to highschool together,” he said, “we also dueled in a lot of tournaments together.”

You nodded in response, and wondered if Yugi was part of the group of friends Seto had told you about once before in his office. The group where one of them had died. You had looked up some of the people surrounding Seto in an attempt to discover more about this mysterious death once before, but had had no luck finding any incidents involving him or any other students at Domino High School. 

You mulled over their relationship as you watch them begin discussing the game they were designing, which sounded like a sort of VR co-op game from what Yugi was describing. It seemed like the game revolved around teaming up and defeating enemies through mini-games, which you thought sounded like a good party game, but you just couldn’t wrap your head around the logistics of the VR portion.

You were prompted to grab your laptop from the desk and delve into some sales research when the topic of console exclusivity was brought up. Seto seemed adamant that the game stay exclusive on the Kaiba Corporation brand virtual reality system-- which you knew was leaps and bounds ahead of other VR systems on the market, and the price tag certainly reflected that-- and Yugi didn’t seem to know very much about what systems he wanted the game on at all. He was content with just designing the game itself and not worrying about logistics outside of that. 

You, on the other hand, were fairly concerned with how many people would actually play the damn thing if it was limited to the Souzouryoku (or the Souzou, as most Westerners called the Kaiba Corp VR technology, which you thought was a better name anyway). The name translated to ‘Imagination’ which had been a development theme for the company over the past few years, so it was pretty fitting. The headpiece, which looked somewhat like a pair of futuristic glasses that slipped over the back of each ear, was the pinnacle of technology; lightweight, sleek, decent battery life when not plugged into its charging station. 

It was an update on the monocle-looking system Seto had debuted at a tournament about two years back, the same tournament where he had blown up a fighter jet. Or maybe it had been a hologram of a fighter jet? Actually, that was kind of a mystery, and there were a decent number of conspiracy theories surrounding the incident. 

Ignoring the fact that your boyfriend was a potential murderer, the main issue with the Souzou was that its lightweight and innovative design came with a hefty price, just under one-thousand dollars US. The Souzou was popular enough in Japan that games could be sold on it and make back their money, but even then barely any developers were willing to put them on there exclusively. Outside of Japan, however, it was being significantly outsold by less-expensive VR alternatives.

“So we’ll design the game as an exclusive, then.” Seto said decisively, and Yugi seemed fine with the decision.

“If you want to give it a death sentence outside of Japan, sure.” You muttered, looking over sales figures of KC games in the West and comparing them to sales figures of Souzou exclusives as best as you could. KC figures were never released to the public, but after telling Corey you had had a hand in him getting the job at the America branch, he had been more than happy to send you the analytics you asked for. Sales reports for the latest quarter weren’t up yet, but you couldn’t imagine they’d be any better. 

“What do you mean?” Yugi asked and looked up at you, worried. Seto merely stared in response to your interruption while you offered Yugi your laptop, which had the sales figures pulled up. Seto leaned over to look at the screen as well, then shot you a hot glare.

“Where did you get these?”

“Unimportant,” you waved him off with a flick of your wrist, “What is important is that no one owns a Souzou outside of Japan, so your best bet is to at least release the game on other VR platforms. Maybe even non-VR, depending on how vital you think that aspect is.” 

Yugi frowned up at Seto, “I think it’s pretty vital.”

“I agree.”

“Then put it on the Vive, the Oculus, PSVR, hell even Google Cardboard--” you paused, “Not to mention, console exclusivity tend to rub a lot of Westerners the wrong way.” 

Yugi looked like his head was swimming in this new information. You wondered how much these two had actually talked about game development outside of the actual game. Hell, you had been a mere programming major for a year and it seemed like you knew a hundred times more than he did. Seto, on the other hand, was giving you a hard stare the entire time you were talking, looking both mildly impressed and bored by knowledge you were sure he already knew. If he did know it, why did he even suggest the game be a KC exclusive anyway? Pride?

Yugi handed you your laptop again and looked up at Seto, who was still staring at you as if he were deciding on an emotion. You minimized the sales reports and turned your attention to Twitter, deciding to let the two get back to design work but keeping an ear out for any ‘Western knowledge’ you could offer. You and one of your friends from high school were in a heated meme battle, sending various game references back and forth in an attempt to one-up each other. 

Seto at some point got a phone call he needed to answer, something to do with server issues at Kaiba Corp, and excused himself from the room. Ciri, who had been resting on the foot of the bed, followed him out and left you and Yugi alone in your bedroom. You were deep down the rabbit hole of google images, searching for the perfect reaction meme for your Twitter war, and barely noticed Yugi staring at you over his laptop. 

“So, how do you know Kaiba?” He asked. 

“Oh, we go to school together,” you replied, eyes scouring your laptop screen. “We take-- oh there it is! Save that bitch!-- we take math classes together.”

“Cool,” Yugi grinned up at you, “Well you seem nice.”

“You don’t know me well enough then,” you smirked, and posted the gif you had just found to the long Twitter chain before looking up at him. “I’m kind of an asshole.” 

“Well then I guess you suit Kaiba,” he chuckled, “Don’t tell him I said that.” 

“Cross my heart,” you winked, “You seem pretty good at dealing with him though.” 

“We’ve known each other for a while. And he used to be a lot worse.” 

“Really? I have a hard time imagining him worse.” 

“Oh yeah. When I first met him he put my grandpa in the ER.” Yugi shrugged.

“Are you serious? Why?” You were somehow more surprised by Yugi’s non-reaction than the fact that Seto had put an old man in the hospital. 

“Gramps had a Blue Eyes he refused to sell Kaiba.”

“Over a trading card?”

“Yeah basically. Like I said, he used to be a lot worse.” Yugi seemed pretty okay with the whole situation despite what he was describing.

“And you’re still friends with him?” You loved the man, but if he put your grandpa in the hospital over a fucking trading card you’d have to have, at minimum, a serious discussion on how to behave. 

“Well, it was a long time ago. Plus my _aibou_ … let’s say he talked some sense into him.”

Aibou. Partner. 

Huh, you hadn’t known Yugi was gay. 

Still, that didn’t change the fact that Yugi was entirely too forgiving under the circumstances. You wondered what on earth he and Seto must have been through since to form the friendship they had, which from what you had observed over the past hour or so seemed pretty strong. Seto seemed extremely comfortable around Yugi, and you’d even caught the faintest hint of a smile lingering on his lips while the two of them discussed game design. 

Despite his bad attitude, Seto seemed to attract some pretty nice people-- not including yourself, of course, you were nothing if not an antagonist. Seto returned to the room shortly after your discussion with Yugi ended, and the two of them returned to their discussion, taking down notes on one of the mini games they wanted to put in. It was a dance game, Yugi said he thought someone named Anzu would probably find it fun, though you weren’t sure who he was referring to. Yugi looked to you at one point for input on their idea, and you merely stated that it sounded like a fun concept as long as the motion controls could be properly implemented. You weren’t much of a dancer, but you could bust a move during a party game with friends equally as bad at dancing-- and equally tipsy. 

It was always fun to listen to two game designers discuss early stages of development. When you were in college in the states, you had to listen to many a meeting like this, though you were usually acting as a voice of reason in those situations. As a programmer, you had to explain the limitations of each idea that was brought up. That was for all intents and purposes Seto’s role in this discussion, and you were enjoying not being the buzz-kill for once. 

By the time the two of them had finished preliminary discussions on the game, which still didn’t have a name, it was close to noon. Yugi invited the two of you for lunch with him and Seto quickly declined, stating you needed to stay in the apartment to make sure no one broke in again. You offered him an apologetic smile, and promised to take him up on his offer next time, as he exited your apartment and left you alone again with your boyfriend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I put a lot of thought into the Souzou, probably a lot more than I should have, so you'll have to forgive me if the amount of detail was obnoxious. But it's gonna come up in a later chapter so I'm planning it out pretty hard haha. I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! It's kinda petty and angsty and both Kaiba and the reader are childish assholes but I blame the amount of fluff I wrote prior. Don't worry, if you're enjoying petty angsty nonsense, there's more to come next chapter.
> 
> I stayed up til midnight so I could post this on time! My day's gonna be pretty busy so I'l afraid I'll forget unless I post now. I have some ballgowns to make and Penelo to finish up for Anime Boston so I'm about ready to die. AND I'M STILL SICK WHYYYYY @-@
> 
> I hope you guys are less swamped than I am!! See you next week <3


	21. The Wind and the Rain

After Yugi left, Seto briskly stated he was going go get some work done and not to bother him, which meant he was still annoyed with you. With nothing better to do, you decided to make you both some sandwiches. It was about lunch time anyway, and asshole or not, you didn’t exactly want your boyfriend to starve. You prepared a couple plates of turkey sandwiches and chips, brought one into your room, and set it on the desk next to Seto’s laptop. He obviously noticed it, but otherwise ignored you. 

You grabbed a couple yards of fabric and some patterns you had been working on, along with your sewing supplies, and brought them into the living room with your food, unwilling to be in the same room as Seto while he was in such a piss-poor mood. He could sulk in isolation for all you cared. Both your cats sat in front of you like hungry vultures, all but begging for scraps of your sandwich. You ignored them, finishing your food before you pushed the coffee table against the wall where your loveseat used to be to give yourself as much space as possible on the floor. 

You headed into the kitchen to put away your empty plate before grabbing the broom and deciding to sweep up the living room before you did anything, lest you get cat fur all over your brand new fabric. Mainly, you just wanted to busy yourself just just about any meaningless work you could to distract yourself from Seto’s bad mood. 

The main issue was that you wanted to be annoyed with him, but were finding it impossible to feel that way. Reason being, after seeing the scars on his back earlier that morning, the only emotion you could muster was sympathy. The scars had absolutely nothing to do with how terribly he was acting today, you knew that, and it wasn’t like you could do anything at all about them, but you desperately wanted to. At the same time, you really didn’t want him to know you’d seen them. Walking around you shirtless led you to believe he wouldn’t care if you saw them, but it seemed like the kind of thing he should tell you rather than you discovering them. 

What could you possibly offer him anyway? You had no idea what he’d been through, or how to relate. The guy had about as tragic a backstory as a fucking anime character, while you were a normal girl from a loving upper-middle-class family. ‘Hey Seto, I saw those scars on your back. I have no way to empathize because my parents are still alive and didn’t beat the shit out of me. Sorry your life sucks so much.’

Yeah that would go over well. 

Once you’d finish sweeping out all your feelings, you laid out a large piece of black satin fabric on the hardwood floor and began puzzling pattern pieces all over to to conserve as much fabric as possible. You had nowhere in particular to wear a satin dress, but one could never own too many dresses, right? Though now that you were dating Seto, maybe you’d have more places to wear a satin dress to after all.

_Stop thinking about him._

You reached over to your phone and thumbed through your music library, trying to find something to distract yourself. You could probably put on some rap, if you focused hard enough on attempting to rap every lyric, you wouldn’t have the brain capacity to think about anything else. That sounded like a good plan. 

As it turned out, DMX was excellent to listen to while you meticulously drew seam allowances around each of your pattern pieces and cut them out. Your productivity skyrocketed, and before you even realized it, two full hours had passed and you had everything cut out and started pinning the edges together. And you didn’t even notice that Seto had left your bedroom and was now staring at you from the entryway to the living room. 

“What are you doing?” He finally grumbled over your music. You pressed pause on your phone but kept your focus on your work, lest you prick your fingertips on the sewing pins you were using to hold your seams together. 

“Making a dress,” you replied.

“Your music is entirely too loud.” 

“Sorry, is it distracting you?”

“Yes.”

You pointed to a pair of earbuds on the coffee table but said nothing.

“You seriously want me to put those in?” He huffed. 

“No, give them to me you idiot,” you rolled your eyes, “I’m not that rude.” 

Seto tossed you the pair of earbuds and they fell with a plunk onto the fabric in front of you. You set down the fabrics in your hands and plugged the earbuds into the jack, realizing how sore your shoulders were from leaning over on the floor for two hours. You groaned and rolled them back so they cracked, looking up at Seto for the first time since his arrival and offering him a smile. He did not return it, as expected. You had to think for a moment on if you’d ever seen him smile, really smile.

Smirking aside, the answer was a solid no. At least, not with you-- he had smiled just barely when Yugi had been here earlier, but even then you wouldn’t have noticed if you hadn’t been staring at him. Right now, his face was its usual perfect mask, though he wasn’t looking you in the eye like he normally did, rather he was looking past you. You wondered if he was just that annoyed with you that he couldn’t stand to look at you, and yet you still couldn’t bring yourself to be annoyed back. Actually, you were a little annoyed with yourself that you weren’t annoyed with him, an endless struggle that was driving you crazy.

Now that you’d stretched your shoulders a little, you discovered how much the rest of your back hurt. You abandoned your fabric and rolled backwards, laying your back flat on the floor and sighing as the muscles stretched. It felt really good. 

“What is with you and laying on the ground?” 

“It feels nice,” you waved him off. 

“Get up.” He said curtly. 

“Why?” You grumbled. You weren’t even going to bother with the fact that he sounded a lot like he was ordering you around again. It annoyed you, but you were more tired of arguing with him than anything else. 

“It’s the _floor_.”

“Astute observation there, Sherlock,” you rolled your eyes, “Is that actually your reason?”

“It’s filthy.” Seto’s voice had grown an edge you did not appreciate, but that only made you want to lay on the floor more to spite him. 

“I just swept. Chillax.”

Silence descended upon the two of you, and you continued to stare at the popcorn ceiling of your Western-style apartment for a while longer before finally picking yourself back up. You stretched your neck to crack it and returned to your prior position, sitting with your legs crossed. You looked up to his face, his strong jaw set in annoyance, eyebrows narrowed. He probably looked that way because the stick shoved up his ass was so uncomfortable, perish the thought. 

“Is work going okay?” You asked.

“Fine.”

“Good talk.” You muttered when he said nothing else, and you returned your attention to the black satin fabric pieces you had been pinning together. You could feel his blue eyes boring into you and if you glanced up just barely you could see the socks on his feet still in the entryway. You wondered if he had something he wanted to say, but didn’t want to push anything since he was in a bad mood. 

After a moment you heard him turn around and walk out of the living room, and you swallowed the lump in your throat. You were tired of his attitude and wanted him to just tell you what he was upset about, you couldn’t tell if he was just moody from your earlier arguments or something was actually wrong. Well, you probably weren’t helping things by being a sarcastic asshole back, but god dammit if he wasn’t good at riling you up.

Now that you were more upset than when you’d started sewing, you didn’t want to work anymore. You packed up all your stuff and set it on the coffee table before dusting yourself off and grabbing your coat from the rack in your entryway and slipping on a pair of shoes. You needed a walk to clear your head.

The December air was especially freezing today, wind whipped at your face and made your eyes water, your fingertips trembled inside of your pockets, and clouds of air puffed from your lips every time you breathed. Little snowflakes fell from the grey sky and stuck in your hair and on your coat, wetting the ground but not sticking to the world around you. 

You wandered around Domino City for nearly hour before your lips were too cold for you to bear anymore, and you ducked into a little tea shop and got yourself a black tea and some cookies, snuggling into one of the booths and warming your numb fingers on the hot cup. You sat alone in the shop for a while, taking your time drinking your tea and eating the small sugar cookies that came with it while you thought about what to do about Seto. 

You were getting pretty fed up with the passive-aggressive dance the two of you were performing, you would much rather just talk about what was wrong. You were the kind of person who wanted to talk out and solve problems quickly, but that would involve Seto actually talking to you, which was already a lot to ask. You really didn’t want to push him to open himself up to you or whatever, but honestly other than being annoyed that you had defied his orders this morning you weren’t sure what he could be upset about. Then again, the man was the biggest drama queen you’d ever met in your life, so it wouldn’t surprise you if that was why he was upset. 

You pulled out your phone and typed out a quick _Crisis_ to the younger Kaiba, praying he had an idea what to do about his idiot brother. 

_What happened?_

_We had an argument and now your brother’s all moody_

_That’s pretty normal_

_Yeah but it’s more moody than usual and I’m not sure how to fix it. What do you do when he’s being an asshole?_

_Usually I just give him some space and he’ll eventually get over it._

Well that was about what you’d expected, but you didn’t like the solution. Giving him space involved letting him sulk in your room for lord knows how long, and you were getting really tired of sitting on the living room floor, hence your walk. You sighed and took another sip of your tea, leaned back against the booth you sat in, and stared at the text messages on the screen.

_What’s his favorite food?_

_Uh… he likes steak a lot. And pizza._

_Pizza?_

_Yeah it’s like a guilty pleasure of his. He orders meat lovers when he’s had a bad day._

_Send me the address of his favorite pizza place? Maybe that’ll be a good appeasement for the beast._

_Kk good luck!_

_Thanks hun you’re a peach ;3_

Once you had the address in hand, you called and ordered a pizza to pick up since it was on the way home anyway, and nibbled at your last cookie until you needed to head out to pick it up. You wondered if Seto had even wondered where you had gone in the last hour and a half, or if he was so deep in work that your absence had gone unnoticed. Probably the later, the man was about as blind as a bat when it came to things outside of his laptop screen. 

You hopped out of the booth and embarked on your journey home, bracing yourself against the wind as you pushed open the tea shop door. Icy drops of rain and snow pelted your fingers and face and you pulled your coat collar up to protect your nose. Despite the fact that it was only approaching four, the dark grey clouds and gloomy weather made it feel much later, and you were feeling pretty lethargic. You regretted walking so far from your house in the wet afternoon, just letting your legs carry you in a random direction as you thought about Seto. 

Seto.

You wondered how long he’d been abused for. You assumed that it was Gozaburo Kaiba who had been doing the beating, considering how much Seto seemed to despise the man, how much he hated talking about him. If memory served, the boys had been adopted when Seto was ten, and his father threw himself off Kaiba Corp HQ when he was fourteen. God, you really hoped Seto hadn’t been abused those entire four years.

Did Mokuba have the same scars? 

You bit the inside of your cheek and tried to push the images of either of the Kaiba boys on the receiving end of Gozaburo’s wrath, just thinking about it was making your blood boil. If he was still alive, you’d probably punch him square in the face. You shoved open the door to the pizza place and gave the very worried looking cashier your name. While you were paying for your food, he looked you up and down about a dozen times, from your wet hair to your snow-covered coat to your bare fingers. 

“What are you doing out in this weather?” He asked, dark brown eyes suddenly locked with yours. 

“Oh I went for a walk. And uh,” you gestured to the box of pizza, “You know.”

“A walk? It’s freezing out.”

You shrugged, “Just trying to clear my head.” 

The boy, who couldn’t have been more than a couple years older than you, narrowed his eyes at you and leaned over the counter a little closer than you would have liked. It was starting to get out of friendly conversation territory very fast, and you really wanted to just grab your pizza and leave. 

“Did you have a fight with your parents or something?”

“Uh, no.” You raised an eyebrow and took the pizza box into your hand, hoping that was the end of the discussion. 

“You know my shift ends in like ten minutes I can give you a ride home--”

“Thanks but I’m fine.” You insisted. You really didn’t like the look in this guy’s eyes, and hoped his route home was not the same as yours, because if he drove up next to you while you were walking you’d probably flip out. You spun around and quickly strode out of the pizza shop, wanting to get home as fast as possible.

Thankfully, your walk home did not involve any run-ins with Creepy Pizza Guy, and you made it back to your apartment safe, sound, and soaking wet. 

“I brought pizza!” You called as you entered the door, setting the pizza box on the small table in the entryway where you normally kept your keys and wallet before beginning to strip off your wet clothes. You tugged your boots off and hung your dripping coat on the rack, away from the others, before Seto exited your bedroom and stared you down. 

“You’re a mess.”

“Gee, thanks,” you replied sarcastically, pulling off your socks, which had been soaked through, and tossing them on the ground before grabbing the pizza box and bounding over to him. “I got meat lover’s, Mokuba said it was your favorite.”

Seto looked to the pizza box, then to your dripping wet hair, before settling on your shirt for just a moment too long before he very conspicuously looked away. You glanced down to see that your wet hair had started dampening the front of your white blouse, just enough so your midnight blue bra peeked out. You pushed the pizza box into his hands and darted around him to the bedroom to grab some clean clothes. 

“Well, at least I picked out a nice bra today,” you said with a bit of an embarrassed grin. You shut your bedroom door and peeled off your wet clothes, your pants slapping to the ground. You slipped on a pair of dry underwear, some yoga pants, and a comfy tee shirt before opening the bedroom door again and shoving the pile of wet clothes into the corner to worry about later. Seto came in with the box of pizza and an annoyed glare, setting the food down on the desk and returning to the chair. 

“It must be raining pretty hard.”

“It wasn’t too bad for a while,” you shrugged, “It got worse toward the end. I think I just look this bad since I was out there a while.”

“How long?” Obviously, Seto had not noticed when you had left. You had expected as much. 

“Three hours, maybe? Although some of that was in this really cute tea shop I found. It had really comfy chairs and the tea was pretty--”

“You should have told me you were going out.” Seto interrupted while you were tying your wet hair up into a messy bun so it wouldn’t drip all over you anymore. 

You really wanted to say something snarky in response, but you were trying to make the man less annoyed, not more, so you instead crawled over the bed to the desk, opened the box of pizza, and grabbed a slice. 

“I didn’t want to bother you while you were working,” _and in a terrible mood_ , “Sorry.”

He merely nodded and took a slice for himself, still avoiding your eyes, which was very unlike him. Normally Seto made it a point to look you in the eyes, sometimes to the extent of making you a little uncomfortable, but all day he’d been avoiding looking at you. You sat down on the bed and focused your gaze on your slice of pizza, taking a bite. It was pretty good, though you were a little surprised someone as rich and snooty as your boyfriend would enjoy fast-food like this, seeing as it was basically a Pizza Hut pizza. The first time you had met Mokuba, the three of you got some very expensive Chinese takeout, but this was more like something you’d be able to afford to order on a lazy Sunday. 

“This is yummy,” you mumbled.

Seto hummed and took a bite of his own slice, glancing at the email he had been in the middle of writing on his laptop screen. Again, you really wanted to ask what he was upset about and potentially fix your problems by talking them out, but at the same time you were afraid it would just make him more upset. You finished your slice of pizza and leaned back to lay down on your bed and stare at the ceiling in an attempt to push away the unresolved tension. 

“Can I ask you something?” 

You were struck with the idea that maybe if you changed the subject of your thoughts completely, things would be less awkward. All you had to do was ask something that had nothing to do with the scars on his back. Nothing to do with the stupid arguments. 

“What?”

“How do you keep so toned?”

“Huh?”

You pointed to his abdomen, “I only ever see you sitting on a computer working. How do you keep in shape like that?” 

He merely shrugged, “They used to be bigger, but I don’t have the time to deal with a personal trainer anymore. I just do some simple workouts every day to keep like this.”

“Did you work out today?” You sat back up and leaned over a little, cocking your head to look up at him. His eyes had finally met yours, and rather than immediately look away he was holding eye contact again.

“Yes, while you were sewing.” 

You grinned a little, “You should let me watch next time.”

“Why?”

“It sounds hot.”

He scoffed and finished the crust of his pizza slice before wiping his fingers on a tissue and returning to the email he was writing. You watched him re-read what he had already typed out, which you thought sounded more angry than usual, before highlighting and deleting the entire thing and beginning anew. The second draft was much more formal, less angry, but still just as demanding.

Looks like pointless little conversations and inappropriate comments were exactly what he needed. Maybe Mokuba was right when he had said you were good for him because of how you distracted him from his stress. 

_‘Other than me, I don't know anyone who can joke with Nii-sama like you do.’_

Yeah, maybe you were good for him. 

You heard a series of loud, metallic banging noises behind the laptop. Your head darted up to identify the sound, quickly realizing that the wind suddenly picked up and was howling against the side of your building, shaking the screen outside of your window. 

“Good thing I got home before that,” you gestured jokingly to the window. Seto hit send on his email and glanced over at you.

“You shouldn’t have gone out in the first place,” he said, sounding much less upset than he had all day. 

“Probably not,” you conceded. You were just glad that you weren’t arguing anymore. You leaned forward a little more to lean your head against his shoulder, feeling his body tense briefly at your touch, before sighing a little and relaxing, allowing you to stay on him. You watched as he pulled up a blueprint for what looked kind of like a college campus, and a document with information on each building.

“What’s that?” You asked. 

“Early blueprints for the academy I am constructing.”

“You’re building a school?”

“Yes.” 

“That’s cool,” you glanced over to the largest building, where in the middle stood a sort of stadium, and pointed to it. “Aren’t those usually outside?” 

“The Duel Ring is the central area of the campus., and it needs to be enclosable in case of weather. Why would I put it outside?”

“The… I’m sorry the what now? The Duel Ring?”

He glanced over at you with a frown.

“Seto Kaiba, are you constructing a duel school?”

“It’s called the Duel Academy.” He corrected. 

“ _Duel Academy_? Are you serious?” You pushed off his shoulder, bewildered. “Who goes to college to learn to play a card game? Honestly Seto--” 

“It’s a high school.” He corrected again. 

“--This is the silliest-- _it’s a high school_?” You stared at him wide-eyed. Was he fucking with you? No, the man looked dead serious. He actually, honest to goodness, wanted to build a school for high schoolers to learn how to play a goddamn children’s card game. You narrowed your eyes at him in thought, unsure of what exactly to say to convey how utterly stupid you thought this was. Because it was. Really, really stupid. 

“It’s not even like a summer school? It’s an actual high school?”

“It’s a boarding school,” he huffed.

“Oh my god.” You reached up to your face and clasped your hands together in front of your lips. You felt like you were one of those moms who had a kid with really big, really stupid dreams. You really wanted to tell him this was never, ever, in a million years going to work. But he had this glint in his eyes, this fire, that screamed ‘I will make this school a reality if it’s the last thing I do’ and you weren’t sure what to do. Somehow, despite the fact that this was absolutely the dumbest thing you’ve ever seen him design, you wanted him to make it a reality. 

Holy shit dating Seto Kaiba was going to spell the death of your sanity. You’d been together for less than two days and already you were torn between making fun of him some more or rooting for him. How dare he confuse you this way. 

You put your hands down and sighed, then settled yourself down and returned to leaning against his shoulder. He shook his head at your presence and returned to his work, typing notes on certain aspects of the main building, and things he wanted in each of the dorms. Apparently, he really hated Osiris. Poor guy. 

You grabbed a second slice of pizza and ate while you watched him work. He was really putting a lot of thought into this academy, despite how much of a waste it seemed like to you. You wondered how much about playing a card game could actually be taught. You also wondered what parents in their right mind would ever send their children to a school for card games instead of an actual high school. What classes would there even be? Theory of Polymerization? Summoning Monsters 101? The more you thought about, the more you convinced yourself that your initial reaction to this idea was correct. 

It was stupid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Actually though Duel Academy is actually a stupid idea and I have no idea how anyone went along with it. Sorry not sorry.
> 
> I know it might be frustrating that nothing was really resolved in this chapter, but that's how relationships work sometimes. But our lovely characters will be having a serious discussion about stuff soon!
> 
> Help I'm so tired school is killing me @-@


	22. The Geek Squad

“We’ve been invited to a party.”

Seto’s low voice broke through the silence of the room, snapping you out of your blissful slumber. Early morning light shafted through the blinds and over your eyes, and you squinted against it. You hummed into your pillow and willed yourself awake before you turned your head to him, “We just went to a party three days ago.” 

“It’s not business. Yugi’s having a gaming party with the rest of the Geek Squad since Anzu’s returned from America for winter break.” Seto grumbled. He was sitting up against two of your pillows, scrolling through his phone. His hair was a bit tamer than it usually was when he first woke up, and he was, again, completely shirtless. Apparently, he was pantsless too, if the Calvin Klein boxer briefs peeking out from under your comforter were any indication. 

“Too bad I have to stay here so no one breaks in.”

“Hypothetically I could have Isono watch the apartment for a couple hours. If we were actually going.”

“Do you wanna go?” You asked groggily.

“Not particularly.”

“You sound like you wanna go,” you hummed, stifling a yawn and propping yourself up on your arm. 

He scoffed. “Even if I wanted to go, I have work to do.” He was now going through his emails and typing out a lengthy response to one 

“You’ve been working non-stop! You deserve a break, Seto.” You said, finally sitting up yourself and grabbing your phone from the nightstand. It was just past seven in the morning, which seemed much too early for Seto to be awake considering he hadn’t gone to bed until almost four. You knew because you hadn’t gone to bed until almost four, unable to sleep well until he had finally stopped working.

“I don’t have time for a break.”

You sighed, shaking your head and deciding to change from the whole work thing, “Are they your friends?” 

“They’re Yugi’s friends.” 

“I think we should go,” you declared, “Gaming parties are always fun, right?”

“I just said I don’t--”

“But I can’t go unless you go,” you whined sleepily. Truthfully, you didn’t give a shit about the party or who was going. But there was a weird fondness to Seto’s voice that made it sound like at least part of him wanted to go to the party. Plus, he could really use a break from the constant working, so if making it seem like you really wanted to go would convince him to attend the party, then you could act excited.

“Fine,” he sighed, giving in much faster than he usually did to your silly demands. You took that to mean part of him wanted to go more than he would to admit. Maybe the constant isolation and working was actually making him lonely. You set your phone back down on the nightstand and sighed, deciding to sleep in just a little more since three hours was absolutely not going to cut it if you were going to a party. You snuggled yourself back into your pillow, clutching the blankets around you in a cocoon of warmth, and drifting back to sleep. 

 

You and Seto were in his car at seven o’clock on your way to the game shop where Yugi lived. It was a different car than the one you had driven to Mister Okuro’s party in a few days ago, this one was pure white and much quieter than his Ferrari. Admittedly, you had no idea what kind of car this one was, but the seats were heated and you were practically in heaven because of it. 

Seto was dressed in a neatly pressed indigo dress shirt, black slacks, and a matching black jacket a little shorter than his usual trench coats. It was one of his more normal-looking outfits, and you were a fan of how it looked on him, especially since you had insisted he leave the very top button of his shirt undone so he didn’t look like quite so stuffy. 

Seto parked his car around the back of the game shop and the two of you headed inside. You clutching your World of Warcraft hoodie around your body and shivered in the December air, wanting to get in as fast as possible. You ended up entering the shop a little before Seto due to practically sprinting inside to get out of the cold.

“Ey, ya made it!” A young man with bleach bottle blonde dyed hair and sparkling brown eyes was the first to greet you with a cheesy grin. He threw an arm around your shoulders and about dragged you into the game shop, jabbing a thumb to himself as a gesture, “Name’s Jounouchi Katsuya, but I’m sure you’ve heard of me. I’m a pretty famous pro duelist after all.” 

“Paws off, mutt.” Seto growled behind you as he entered the game shop himself, and Jounouchi quickly let go of you and turned to scowl at him. 

“Relax Kaiba, I’m just bein’ friendly!” 

“Too friendly.” He corrected hotly, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring back at the blonde. Though you’d never say anything, you noticed Seto was making himself look a little taller than usual. You watched the two of them have a heated staring contest before another man tapped you on the shoulder and offered you a beer.

“They’re always like that,” he shrugged as you took the bottle, a small dice earring dangling from his lobe, “Have been since Duelist Kingdom. I’m Otogi Ryuuji, glad you could make it. Honestly I’m surprised Kaiba even agreed to show up.” 

“You and me both,” you admitted and took a sip of the beer. It was more like a cooler than anything, with a weird fruity aftertaste, but you weren’t one to turn down free alcohol.

“Hey Kaiba, you guys came!” Yugi called as he came down the stairs behind you. The four of you turned your attention to him.

You waved up at him, “Hey Yu--”

“I can’t believe ya’ invited that bastard Kaiba,” Jounouchi huffed, interrupting your attempt at a greeting. He waved Seto off and made his way toward Yugi. You raised an eyebrow to Ryuuji, who responded with a look of ‘you’ll get used to it’, and followed him up the stairs.

“This is going to be a waste of my time.” Seto sighed.

“I’ve been here for less than a minute and I’ve already got a cold beer,” you shrugged, “So I’ve got no complaints.” 

The two of you followed the others up the stairs and into a room decorated with old school gaming cabinets and posters from various video and tabletop games. Against one wall was a large plasma screen TV with the latest consoles plugged in, with a few bean bag chairs in front. Two people were sitting is said chairs, playing Mario Kart and potentially ruining their friendship. Across the room was a bookshelf full of different board and card games, sorted by color, next to a table with some Duel Monsters card mats. 

“Geeze and I thought I was a nerd,” you whistled, taking another sip of your beer. Yugi grinned up at you and the two on the beanbags turned around to greet you. The girl, Shizuka, looked a little too young for the beer next to her, with long brown hair and a kind smile that bore an eerie resemblance to Jounouchi’s. The other, Honda, had a pompadour-like hairstyle that made him look like a very non-threatening biker, and he smiled at you warmly before immediately frowning at Seto. Unsurprisingly, your boyfriend was receiving some pretty mixed reactions from ‘The Geek Squad’. No wonder he was on the fence about coming. 

Ryuuji handed Seto an open beer, which he took without a word. He lifted it to his lips to take a sip, frowning at what you assumed was the fruity aftertaste since his bottle bore the same label yours did. You tried your best not to grin by taking a sip of your own and looking over to the intense Mario Kart game going on between Honda and Shizuka. Whoever was playing Toad was drifting through the snow map like a pro. 

Honda groaned when Shizuka-- who was apparently really good at the game-- crossed the finish line. She giggled and placed a hand on his shoulder playfully, using her other hand to pick up her drink and take a long sip. You noticed Jounouchi shift uncomfortably against the wall he was leaning on at the sight. You also noticed that he was the only one in the room who wasn’t drinking. 

“Damn girl, you know how to drift,” you gestured to the television and grinned. 

“Thanks!” Shizuka chirped, “I used to play with my brother when we were kids.” She pointed to Jounouchi with her chin, then quickly turned back to the television, insisting on playing another round.

“You guys are siblings?”

Jounouchi nodded, glancing up from the cards he was shuffling through in his hands. He had a determined shimmer in his eye when he turned his attention from you to Seto, and Seto looked back with a raised eyebrow. The two of them had a silent battle, and your boyfriend was obviously winning, because he was staying perfectly composed like the haughty businessman that he was while Jounouchi was getting more and more riled up. 

“Ugh, dammit Kaiba!” He finally growled, putting his cards back together in a deck and jabbing a finger into Seto’s chest. “This is the day you’re gonna finally show me some respect!” 

“Respect is something you earn, mutt,” Seto said coolly, shoving Jounouchi’s finger off his pressed indigo dress shirt and brushing the spot off with his fingertips, as if it had left some invisible filth behind. 

“Well then I’m gonna earn it! C’mon Rich Boy, square up and duel me.”

“That sounds like an absolute waste of my time.” 

“You’re not doing anything anyway,” Ryuuji chimed in, taking a seat in one of the chairs near the table with the card mats.

“What’s wrong Kaiba? Afraid I’m gonna finally beat ya’ in front of your girlfriend?”Jounouchi taunted with a devilish grin. You scoffed before Seto was able to; from the videos you’d seen online Jounouchi had never beat him in a duel, really he hadn’t ever come very close. Said scoff garnered a glare from Jounouchi, but you were more interested in how Seto looked over at you with an approving smirk. He was obviously pleased with your (totally biased) confidence in him.

“Fine then,” Seto reached into his jacket and pulled out a deck, and you had to bite back a grin at the fact that he carried his card around with him at all times. Your boyfriend was a goddamn child. The two of them sat down at opposite ends of the table, shuffling their decks and holding eye contact. Seto shuffled his deck elegantly, his long fingers working quickly, while Jounouchi leaned uncomfortably close to him in an attempt to intimidate him. It was not working. 

Yugi pulled one of the chairs up to sit next to Jounouchi, and you walked over to stand behind Seto as the two exchanged and cut their decks. Other than the sounds of Mario Kart in the background, there was a tense silence in the room. The duelists in front of you drew their hands, and you glanced over the cards Seto held, trying to figure out what was what. You weren’t sure what any of them did, other than the Blue Eyes, which you knew was his favorite monster. 

Shortly after the duel began, a young woman with a short brown bob and platform heels even taller than yours came into the room and quickly bounded over to Yugi. She pulled him into a long hug, before kissing him and grinning like a lovesick fool. You blinked a few times in confusion, which was noticed by both Ryuuji and Jounouchi.

“That’s Anzu,” Ryuuji clarified, “She studies dance in America, we’re celebrating her return to Japan before the next semester.”

That did not answer your biggest question. 

“She’s my girlfriend,” Yugi said with a dorky smile and flushed cheeks. 

“Oh, I thought you were gay.” You said without really thinking. 

For a moment he looked absolutely mortified. “W-What?”

“He’s definitely not gay,” Anzu assured you with a sly grin. 

“I’m not. Definitely not. Why would you think I’m gay?” 

“Oh yesterday you just mentioned your _aibou_ so I just assumed…” you muttered, trying to figure out if you had gone wrong somewhere with your translation. Truthfully you weren’t totally sure if partner in Japan meant the same thing it did in America, you had just assumed it did. You’d have to look it up when you got home. 

An uncomfortable silence descended amongst everyone in the room, Seto even going so far as to pause in the middle of his turn and shoot you a look that said ‘drop it’. You frowned in confusion, not used to a little translation mix-up having such an effect on the atmosphere of a room. Usually people laughed when you didn’t understand the meaning of a word. 

You took an awkward sip of your beer and Seto returned to the game, setting two cards and gesturing for Jounouchi to make his move. Neither of them had lost any life points yet, so you weren’t sure who was winning, but your boyfriend was surrounded by his usual air of confidence so you chose to assume it was him. Jounouchi used his Gearfried to attack Seto’s set card, which he flipped to reveal a card called the Maiden with Eyes of Blue. The card had a holographic shimmer to it that really did make her blue eyes appear as if they were shining, looking directly at you for a moment. A brief feeling of discomfort washed over you before you decided maybe you needed a break from your beer and set it down next to Seto’s. 

You didn’t really follow what happened, you were still trying to learn the game again since it had been awhile since Mokuba taught you the basics, but suddenly Seto had a Blue Eyes White Dragon on the field. Very quickly, Jounouchi was put into an obviously unfavorable situation, and you could tell from the look on his face he was beginning to feel the pressure. Just as you had expected from your boyfriend.

About halfway through the duel you were still having some trouble following, another young man with snow white hair and a casual plaid button-up came into the room and made his way to the table. Shizuka and Honda had also joined you all in watching, and you couldn’t help but notice that you were the only person standing on Seto’s side of the table, and likely the only one rooting for his victory, albeit silently.You wondered if this was how all his other duels went to, with no one around to cheer him on. Of course, you were sure Mokuba would be around at least sometimes, but you still had to ask yourself if he’d ever had friends, real friends, cheering for him. 

“You can do this dude, you’ve been in tougher binds before.” Honda assured, giving his friend a slap in the back. 

“Honda’s right,” Anzu agreed, “You’re not going to let Kaiba keep treating you like a dog are you?” 

“At this rate I believe he will,” Seto smirked, “It would be a miracle for him to ever be good enough to beat me.”

“That’s exactly why I hate ya’ Kaiba! That big ego of yours!” Jounouchi huffed, searching the cards in his hand for a strategy. 

“Relax man, he’s just trying to rile you up.” Honda said. 

“Well it’s workin’!” 

Seto crossed his arms over his chest triumphantly, keeping his eyes locked with his opponent’s as an obvious intimidation tactic. Honestly, this card game was way more mind-gamey and intense than it had any business being. You could see why Duel Monsters tournaments were so popular, especially if all the pro duelists were either as energetic as Jounouchi or egotistical as Seto. It made for a good storyline. 

Within two more turns, Seto had secured his victory, winning with just over two-thousand lifepoints. Jounouchi had been able to pull off a pretty flashy move in the middle of the duel taking out Seto’s Blue Eyes, but had no way of dealing with the other two that were summoned shortly after. You were unsurprised by your boyfriends victory, but visibly shocked when Jounouchi extended a hand over the table after how upset he’d looked over his defeat.

“I’m gonna beat ya’ next time, Kaiba.” He swore as Seto merely stared at his hand, as if debating whether or not to take it.

“I’d like to see you try,” he said dryly, finally accepting the handshake. Though it might have seemed like he was just being a haughty asshole, the challenge implied he’d enjoy dueling with the blonde again. The two of them got up from the table and everyone on Jounouchi’s side patted him on the back, assuring him that he’d beat Kaiba someday, and congratulating him on doing better than he ever had before.

“You’re really good,” you grinned up at Seto, blocking out the warm sentiments of the group of friends next to you. 

“Of course I am,” he rolled his eyes at you and put his deck back into his jacket pocket, picking up his beer and taking a long sip. He again frowned at the fruity taste and brushed past you to exit the room, probably to use the bathroom or check his work emails.

“Can I ask you something?” Honda asked you the moment he was out of earshot.

“Yeah, sure.” You mumbled, turning to face him and picking up your beer from the table.

“What’s Kaiba like? You know when it’s just the two of you?”

Everyone else in the room had also stopped their conversation to look at you, all suddenly very interested in Seto’s life outside of card games. Well, everyone except for Yugi, who seemed much more interested in staring at his hand which was locked with Anzu’s.

“Uh, not much different honestly.” You admitted, taking a small sip of your beer to buy yourself some time to think, “I mean he’s still just as snarky and moody, but he can be really sweet.”

“Sweet? Are ya' sure we’re talkin’ about the same Kaiba here?” Jounouchi scoffed. 

“Yeah, I mean it’s not super often, but I think he’s better than you give him credit for.” You said defensively. 

“I can’t believe that rich asshole got a girlfriend before me,” Jounouchi groaned, shaking his head, “He probably doesn’t know the first thing ‘bout love.” 

“What about you and Mai- _san_?” Shizuka asked, placing a reassuring hand on his back. 

“I dunno,” he admitted, “I mean we’ve been on a few dates and done some tournaments together, but I can’t tell if she likes me.” 

“She’s always flirting with you, obviously she liked you.” Ryuuji rolled his eyes. 

“Yeah but she’s always done that.”

“Well do you wanna be with her?” Anzu chimed in. 

“Yeah of course I do!”

“Then you gotta go for it, man!” Honda said, pumping his fist in the air. 

As you watched the seven of them talk so fondly, you wondered again if Seto had anyone like these guys did. Even though all your good friends were still seven thousand miles away on another continent, you still had people you could bicker with and talk about dumb problems to. But other than Yugi and whoever had apparently died in this group, Seto had never once mentioned having a real friend.

You mumbled an excuse about needing to pee before leaving the room yourself, wanting to be away from the group of good friends for a moment to collect yourself. You paused when you got out of the doorway and couldn’t be seen, realizing you weren’t sure where the bathroom was. You were about to just pick a random door and hope for the best when you heard everyone start talking in hushed voices. You quietly leaned against the wall and chose to eavesdrop, despite knowing better. 

“I’ve never heard you call him _aibou_ before.” You heard Anzu whisper. 

“Oh,” came Yugi’s small voice, “Well, I kind of started referring to him that way after I saw him again, I don’t know. It’s what he used to call me, so it just felt right. I’ve never had anyone think I was gay though.”

“I wonder if that’s an American thing.”

“Maybe.” Yugi had this weird, uncomfortable strain on his voice.

“It’s okay to miss him you know.” Honda said quietly. 

“Yeah, we all do.” Jounouchi agreed. 

“I know. But I know where he is… it’s better.” Yugi sighed. 

_Oh._

You leaned your head back against the wall and sighed. It sounded suspiciously like they were talking about someone who had died. You assumed that it was the friend that Seto had mentioned a while back. That explained why everyone was so uncomfortable when you brought up the whole aibou thing. Now you felt like a jerk. 

“What’s with you?” Seto asked, startling you out of your thoughts when he appeared in front of you in the dimly lit hallway. His eyes were narrowed at your face, arms crossed over his chest, the beer bottle he had had earlier now gone. 

“I just heard something I wasn’t supposed to,” you muttered somberly. 

“Has no one ever told you eavesdropping is rude?” He chided, glancing to the open doorway to the game room. The way his voice dropped an octave sounded like he had an idea of what you had heard. 

“I have no respect for authority.” You said sardonically.

“I’m aware,” he said, turning away to the direction of the room, but not making to move toward it. You glanced up at him as his shoulders briefly tensed, before he spoke again, “I’d appreciate if you didn’t ask me about it.”

“Okay, I won’t.” You said softly, directing your gaze to the floor and listening to his footsteps get quieter and quieter as he returned to the room. You thought fondly on the fact that he hadn’t ordered you not to speak about it, maybe he was actually trying to be more accommodating. Or maybe he was just thrown off by the uncomfortable topic. 

You returned to the party a few minutes later, and everyone else pretended the conversation you were not supposed to hear never happened. For the remainder of the night, the nine of you drank and played games and celebrated Anzu’s return to Japan for the next month. You had a few more beers than you had intended to, as did pretty much everyone else except for Seto, who needed to drive you home, and Jounouchi, who had absolutely nothing to drink the entire night. 

At some point, you had all huddled around the television taking turn playing Smash Bros. and yelling at each other. Anzu and Yugi were sitting close to each other on some chairs, holding hands when one of them wasn’t playing. Ryuuji had claimed one of the bean bags, Shizuka the other, and Jounouchi, Honda, and Bakura had taken the remaining chairs. That left you and Seto sitting on the floor, with Seto leaning himself against the wall and typing out emails on his phone when it wasn’t his turn, and you leaning on his chest. He was much comfier than the wall, and you were much too tipsy to be expected to sit up on your own. His arm was wrapped around you both when he was on his phone and when he had a controller in his hand, and he smelled like musk and aftershave. 

At close to eleven, Seto informed you that the two of you needed to get back to your apartment so Isono could finally stop keeping watch. You said your good-byes to everyone at the party, giving a warm hug to an equally tipsy Shizuka and drunkenly telling Bakura you thought his accent was hot before Seto dragged you out of the game shop and into his car to head home. 

“You’ve had too much to drink,” he muttered once he got you into the heated leather seat.

“Maybe you haven’t had enough,” you replied sleepily, sinking into the warmth and stifling a yawn. 

“I’m driving.”

“Oh yeah,” you hummed, “Cars are nice.”

“Cars are nice? Are you serious?”

“You’re nice,” you said, this time unable to hold back your yawn. 

“And you’re drunk.” He scoffed, his voice far away as you closed your eyes and drifted easily to sleep. 

Your nap didn’t last long, and you awoke to your body being rocked back and forth in a soft, rhythmic motion. You blinked your eyes open only to be blinded by a light bulb directly overhead, and you squeezed them shut again. One of your hands was clutching at Seto’s dress shirt, you could feel his hands on your back and the underside of your knees, your feet dangling in the air. You opened your eyes again and stared up at his face, just above yours as he carried you bridal-style down the hallway to your apartment.

“Seto,” you hummed up at him. 

He glanced down at you with a frown but said nothing. 

“You smell nice,” you murmured, leaning your head against his chest and tightening your grip on the front of his shirt. 

“You get very sappy when you’re drunk,” he remarked. 

“I get sappy when I’m tired,” you said, “And I get tired when I’m drunk. Do you like sappy?” 

“It’s different.” He stated coolly. 

You chuckled, “Why do I feel insulted?” 

Seto pushed the door to your apartment open and you heard footsteps coming closer to you, probably Isono you figured. Seto didn’t stop to say anything to him though, he just continued into your apartment and turned into your room before setting you down so you sat at the edge of your bed. 

You kicked off your heels and stretched your back before reaching to the hem of your blouse and pulling it over your head, completely forgetting about Seto’s presence in your delirium. You tossed your blouse to the floor and blinked, before looking up and him and realizing he was still there, staring down at you with a mix of surprise and annoyance. 

“I got this bra at Victoria’s Secret,” you blurted, “It’s a bombshell. It makes my boobs two cup sizes bigger, isn’t that cool?”

You’d never wanted to bury your face in your hands and hide away from the world quite like you did in that moment. Of all of the things to say at a time like this, you chose to give away your secret to a fuller looking bust? You'd probably be even more visibly embarrassed had you not been so drunk, but as it stood, you just stared up at him and could not think of anything else to say. 

“I think it’s time you go to bed.” Seto mumbled, pulling at the bed covers and pushing you down so you were laying on the pillow he had been using the past two nights, very obviously averting his gaze from your two-cup-sizes-bigger breasts. He pulled the covers up over you, and immediately you turned onto your side and buried your face into the pillow, the smell of his shampoo washing over you. 

“You’re good at this,” you muttered into the pillow. 

“At what?” He asked, his voice low. You could hear him moving away from the bed and toward your bedroom door.

“Taking care of people.” 

“Have you met Mokuba?” He scoffed, and you heard the flick of the light switch as the room got darker through your eyelids. 

“Good night Seto,” you breathed, though it was so quiet you weren’t sure if he heard it. Within minutes, you were fast asleep, breathing the smell of Seto’s shampoo and dreaming pleasant dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now errybody in the club gettin tipsy! 
> 
> I had a lot of fun writing all of the other characters in this one! I think it's fun having them interact with Kaiba when everyone is a little older and more mature, even if it isn't by much. I tried to make everyone much friendlier and more adult, but still keep them true to how they are in the show and manga. It was a nice change of pace from just having Kaiba and the reader, but we'll be going back to focusing on these two again next chapter. It's their last day in Reader-chan's apartment, after all!
> 
> Hope you guys enjoy this chapter! I'm starting to get extra-extra busy with due dates and uni stuff. The semester is almost over, only a month to go! I'm starting to get a little scared actually, but writing this and Ghost have been helping me relax at the end of every day! I had forgotten why I loved writing so much until I started again :3 
> 
> Anywhoo, I wish you all luck with any deadlines you may have coming up, school or work or otherwise. Fell free to drop a comment on what you liked/disliked in this chapter, and hope to see you here next week!


	23. Antacid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LOTS OF FLUFF AND KISSES INCOMING

The second light hit your eyes when you blinked them open, your head started pounding. You squeezed them shut and rolled onto your side, burying your face into the chest of the warm body next to you and groaning. Seto was laying on his back with his arm underneath you, still wearing a shirt and pants, hand resting against your bare back. You wondered if you had rolled onto him in the middle of the night, or he had wrapped his arm around you of his own volition. You nuzzled yourself closer into him before realizing you had, essentially, nestled yourself into his armpit.

“What are you doing?” Seto muttered sleepily.

“You’re warm and it’s dark,” you hummed, the sound of your own voice hurting your head a little.

“You’re hungover.” He sighed.

“Yeah,” you agreed, breathing in the musky body wash on his skin. He had taken a shower last night judging by how the expensive wash still lingered on his skin and clothes, which explained why he was wearing different clothes from the ones he had to worn the party. You were surprised that Seto had made no moves to push you off of him or move his arm from beneath you. “What time is it?”

You felt his muscles flex as he reached over your body to the bedside table, presumably to check the time on his phone. He had to lean his chest over a little bit, squishing your head against him a little more than was comfortable so you could feel the pounding in your skull even more, before returning to his original position. 

“Almost ten.” He grumbled. 

“Oooh we slept in. When did you go to bed?” 

“Six. Get out of my armpit.” 

“What the fuck,” you managed to dig yourself out of his armpit and blinked against the sunlight, leaning your cheek against his chest so you could look up at him, “Why so late?”

“I wasn’t planning to sleep, but at six you practically dragged me to bed.” He rolled his eyes.

“Really?”

“You don’t remember? You grabbed my arm and tugged on it until I agreed to come to bed. Then you insisted I snuggle you.”

You searched your memory but couldn’t recall even waking up last night, much less dragging your boyfriend into bed with you. You must have been either really tired, or still drunk, to do something like that and completely forget it. You shrugged, keeping your eyes locked with his and smiling despite your pounding head.

“Well did you snuggle me?”

“No. Eventually you wore yourself out and fell asleep.” 

“Why didn’t you just get back up?” You chuckled.

“You were still latched onto my arm. If I moved I would have woken you up and had to deal with your whining again.”

Well that at least explained how you ended up sleeping on his arm. Admittedly, it had been silly to think the man would snuggle you of his own volition. 

“I should not have had so many beers,” you sighed. 

“Did you learn your lesson?” He asked, lifting his phone in front of his face and unlocking it, probably to do some work.

“Yes mom,” you said sarcastically, debating whether or not to go back to sleep on Seto’s chest. Though he insisted he had not snuggled you last night, he was making no move to push you off of him right now. There was a fondness in his voice, barely there, but you’d take what you could get. You decided better on falling asleep again despite your hangover, instead settling on watching his eyes flash across the screen as he read something, probably emails from the frown that was growing on his face. 

The way his blue eyes sparkled against the sunlight and his hair was a mess in the morning made you smile. You had noticed those things each time you woke up next to him, and you had yet to get tired of any of it.You had yet to get tired of him. 

“Why are you staring at me like that?” He grumbled, keeping his eyes locked on his phone. 

“Like what?”

“Like an idiot.”

You snorted out a laugh, hurting your head a little in the process. 

“That wasn’t a joke.” He grumbled.

“I know, that’s why it’s funny.” You chuckled.

He rolled his eyes and began typing on his phone, obviously not nearly as amused as you were. You craned your neck and pushed your body up a little, squashing your breasts against his chest so you could angle yourself to better look at his phone. He was texting Mokuba, who had apparently heard from Jonouchi that you had had a little too much fun at the party, and wanted to make sure you were alright. He was also asking, perhaps a little too directly, if his brother had 'gotten some'. You couldn’t help but laugh.

“He’s much too young to be asking me about this,” Seto groaned, turning the screen of his phone off and placing it on his stomach, pinching the bridge of his nose between his finger and thumb. 

“He’s just concerned for you,” you dismissed, picking the phone up while his guard was down and sitting up so you were straddling his legs. You rubbed your head with your free hand since you had sat up too fast, waiting for the dizziness to subside before pulling the phone up to your face. 

“What are you doing?” He frowned, sitting up and reaching for his phone. You leaned back and pressed the lock button, satisfied to see the text window appear without asking for a password. He probably had it on a timer. 

“I’m gonna answer him,” you replied teasingly, keeping the phone just out of his reach, though he wasn’t really trying too hard. “Maybe I’ll fire someone too while I’m at it. Oh, to have the world at my fingertips.” 

“You’re insufferable.” 

“Insufferable is my middle name,” you cooed, trying to decide what to text to Mokuba’s slightly inappropriate question. You were a big believer in honesty, especially at his age. 

_If by 'some' you mean lots of snuggles, then yeah. I got plenty (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و_

You were positive Mokuba would know it was you, but it would still be a good laugh either way. Despite your curiosity and desire to go through other parts of Seto’s phone, you decided better of invading his privacy, and locked the phone again, keeping it clutched in your hand for a moment as you stared at him. His expression was blank, arms crossed over his chest as he just watched you. You were honestly pretty surprised that he was putting up with your little joke, wondering if it was because he trusted you not to do anything stupid, or he just didn’t want to deal with you complaining. 

But, you were more interested in how far you could take it. You leaned up a little, keeping your eyes locked on him as you contemplated your next move, watching the sun from the blinds move over his face, unable to hold back the smile that crept onto your lips. 

“Why do you keep staring at me like that?” Seto huffed.

You hummed and tilted your head a little to get a better look at him, “Because I love you.”

“Why?”

“Why do I love you?” You asked, surprised.

He said nothing, eyes locked with yours, a frown etched on his face. You couldn’t tell if he was asking out of curiosity or insecurity. You laughed, moving your body closer to him so you were on his lap rather than his boney legs, and draping your arms over his shoulders, smiling as you watched him blink calmly, hardly reacting to the physical contact.

“That’s kind of a big question,” you said, wondering if your boyfriend would get the Scott Pilgrim reference. But you weren’t lying, it was a big question, with a big answer. You loved a lot of things about him, a lot of little things. The way his hair framed his face perfectly, the way his hands rested on you when you snuggled against him, the way he said your name like it was his favorite food. The way his eyes wandered you as if he was shopping, and he always decided he wanted to buy you. 

How he was honest about absolutely everything, so when he said something nice to you, you knew he meant it. How he could cheer you up in an instant by just sitting next to you, or how his lips parted just slightly when you got close to him, or how terrible he was at hiding his emotions despite how hard he tried. How he asked dumb questions like “Why do you love me” despite his giant ego. 

You loved when he put up with your annoying little quirks, complaining about them but never trying to change them. You loved his sarcastic sense of humor. You loved the way his face was drifting a little bit closer to yours right now, and you couldn’t tell if it was involuntary or on purpose. 

“Everything.” You said decisively. 

“That’s a cop-out answer.”

“Is it really a cop-out if it’s true?” You mused.

“You can’t possibly love everything about me.” He said, obviously unsatisfied with your answer.

“But I do. I mean, all to varying degrees, but there’s at least something about all your traits that I love,” you hummed, “I mean yeah you have your faults but that doesn’t mean I don’t love those parts, too.”

“You’re such a romantic,” he rolled his eyes, his breath still smelled like toothpaste.

“Only when it comes to you.” You smirked. It was taking all of your willpower to not just lean that little bit closer and kiss him.

“Give me my phone back,” he sighed, glancing over his shoulder to look at said phone, clutched in your hands. 

“Aw, you’re already bored of looking at my beautiful face?” You pouted.

“When have I ever said your face is beautiful?”

“Seto,” you mock-gasped, “I can’t believe you! Toying with a maiden’s heart.”

“You’re a far cry from a maiden,” he deadpanned, attempting to wiggle out of your arms, but obviously not trying very hard. The man was much stronger than you, and if he really wanted to he could probably throw you off of him and take his phone back with little resistance.

“How dare you! I am a pure, innocent lady.” You proclaimed, trying hard to look as serious as possible. 

“Right. Which is why you’re on my lap right now with no shirt on.” 

You glanced down at your pretty white bombshell bra, and sufficiently pushed-up breasts inside, remember you had drunkenly thrown off your blouse the second Seto had brought you into the room last night. Oh yeah. 

“It’s a distraction tactic.” You said quickly. Thank god you were getting really good at hiding any shame you still had left.

He raised an eyebrow. 

“Is it working?”

“Don’t ask stupid questions.” He said flatly.

“Is it stupid because you’re obviously distracted, or stupid because you’re immune to my tits? Because I really can’t tell.” You said playfully, inching your chest closer to his so your bra was just touching him.

“Get off of me. It’s too early to deal with you,” he shook his head, the tip of his nose brushing against yours a few times.

“I’ll get off if you kiss me.” You offered devilishly. 

“You’re ridiculous,” he muttered, placing on of his hands on the small of your back and flickering his eyes between your lips and your irises, as if debating whether to kiss you or not. Technically, although kissing you was obviously a wonderful thing, it would be admitting his defeat. Quite the catch twenty-two really. 

“Isn’t that why you love me?” You teased.

“Shut up,” he grumbled, silencing your teasing by placing his mouth over yours, pulling your body into his with a hunger that betrayed the calmness he had been carefully building up. You hummed into his kiss, fluttering your eyelids shut and tilting your head a little so your nose wasn’t being squished against his. His lips tasted like mint, his chest was warm against yours, and the small, cool breaths he was taking through his nose tickled your skin. 

“Satisfied?” He ask haughtily, breathing against your lips as he kept his face close to yours, eyes dark behind his mess of bangs.

“I wish I had you around to cure all my hangovers,” you replied, moving your arms in so they were circling the back of his neck, his phone still in your hand. You may have been pushing your luck, but if he wasn’t going to kick you off, you may as well get comfy. 

“I thought you were going to get off if I kissed you?” His lips brushed against yours, clearly teasing you, waiting to see what you’d do next.

“Did I say that? Gosh, I don’t remember.”

“Liar,” he accused, pulling you against him for another kiss, using his teeth to nip at your bottom lip and holding you still when you squirmed against him in response. His fingers ghosted across the skin of your back, deepening the kiss and making your head spin. You dropped his phone on the mattress and moved your arms from the back of his neck, maneuvering your fingers to the front of his shirt and fumbling with the buttons. You could only get the first three undone since he was pressing you to hard into him, but it was enough for you to snake your hands into his shirt and feel the warmth of his chest on your palms.

“What are you doing?” He muttered into your lips, refusing to let you go.

“Touchin’ you,” you muttered back, moving your hands down to his abdominal muscles as far as you could, then up to his shoulders, stroking along his collarbones for a moment before repeating the motion. 

“You’re going to stretch out my shirt,” he chided between kisses. 

“Then let me unbutton it all the way.” You smirked into his lips. 

He loosened his grip on your back just enough that you weren’t completely squished against him, allowing you to work apart the other four buttons and toss the front of his shirt open, revealing his toned muscles and hairless skin the color of light caramel. Satisfied, you returned to allowing your hands to wander along his stomach and up his chest as his tongue brushed against your bottom lip, making you giggle. 

“So I guess you don’t want me off you anymore?” You teased. 

“Shut up,” he growled for a second time, fingertips gripping your hipbones. You allowed yourself another giggle before obligingly parting your lips for him, inclined to be obedient to his requests since he was being oh so hospitable. You were really enjoying times like these, the impulsive, heat-of-the-moment times that you had at first though to be out of character for Seto. 

Your hands brushed against his skin, along his sides, before winding around him so you could hug him. Your fingers glided against a raised area, then a second, before you froze and remember what exactly you were touching. You stiffened against his body, prompting Seto to break the kiss and pull his face away from you, studying your wide eyes and slightly parted lips. Your fingers stayed completely still on one of the soft ridges of his skin, and you swallowed hard, afraid of saying something offensive.

“Your dad?” You asked softly, trying to keep your voice even. 

He said nothing, blinking slowly, and just staring down at you with a frown. His face was unreadable, the way it got when he didn’t want talk about something.

“Do they still hurt?”

“No.” He said, as if your question was a stupid one, “It was a long time ago.”

You nodded slowly. “I’m sorry.”

“For?”

You shrugged somberly, “Ruining the moment. Asking you about it. Making you uncomfortable?” 

He scoffed, reaching to his side to pick up his phone that you had dropped with one hand and pushing you off his chest with the other. He began to to re-button his shirt, “It’s not as if I’m a child anymore. I can handle an uncomfortable discussion.”

_Looks like the kissing's over._

You nodded again, pushing yourself off of his lap and off the bed, headed toward the closet to find a clean shirt. You bit at the inside of your cheek and wondered if there would have been a better way to ask him about it. You shouldn’t have even touched his back at all, you should have remember the scars. How could you be so stupid?

“The locksmith will be here in a few hours,” Seto said, any emotion his voice had held earlier now drained. 

“Which means you’re leaving in a few hours?” You asked with a frown, tossing a plaid shirt on and working the buttons closed. 

“Yes. I have to prepare for a business trip.”

“Where are you going?” You asked, turning to face him as you finished buttoning the shirt. You walked to the foot of the bed and sat down, leaning your weight against your arm. 

“Melbourne.”

“Australia? What for?” You pulled an elastic off your wrist and used it to tie your hair in a ponytail, suddenly aware that you had not showered last night before bed. 

“A gaming conference,” he said, clicking his phone on and keeping his gaze from you. 

“That sounds fun!” 

“I hate them.” He replied sourly, “It’s four days of people asking stupid questions and pretending they know more than I do about game development.” 

“Oh the humanity,” you deadpanned, “Well I’ll miss you.” 

“I’m sure you will,” a cocky smirk just barely broke onto his face.

You shook your head and smiled, glancing down to Dandelion, who had taken to rubbing his nose against your leg. You leaned over and scratched his face, behind his ears, and under his chin, eliciting satisfied purrs from him. Seto spent a few more minutes on his phone before pushing himself off the bed and moving to your desk, opening his laptop with a tired sigh.

“How much work do you have to do today?” You asked.

“As much as I always do.” He said sarcastically.

You rolled your eyes and picked Dandelion up, plopping him in your lap.

“I have to prepare a presentation for the conference.” 

“Gross, I hate presentations.”

“As do I.”

“Really? You seem really good at public speaking,” you hummed, thinking to the videos of him onstage at his tournaments. “And you seem to like the spotlight.”

“Presentations require rehearsal and memorization. I don’t have time for that.” He said, opening up an expensive looking powerpoint-like software and pulling up a set of slides it looked like he’d already been working on, filled with charts and graphics and sales figures. Unsurprisingly, his whole presentation color theme was white and blue, making you wonder if the man had a creative bone in his body. 

“Are you hungry?” 

He shrugged. 

“I’ll go make some breakfast.” You moved Dandelion off your lap and headed to the kitchen to find something to make. Maybe breakfast burritos, since you had all the eggs and veggies for it. 

You spent your cooking time musing over how nice Seto was being this morning, letting you snuggle on him and kissing you, and he hadn’t even been upset with you over the whole scar thing. You wondered if something good happened to him last night after you fell asleep to put him in such a good mood. You returned to the bedroom and set a plate of burritos down next to his laptop, noticing he had already made and animated four more slides in your absence. 

“You work fast,” you said, taking a bite of your breakfast. 

“I do when you’re not here to distract me.”

“Rude.” 

You munched on your burrito, dipping it in salsa between bites, and keeping Dandelion away from your plate with your free hand. He was more like a dog than a cat, and he’d eat just about anything if you’d let him. You kept quiet, allowing your boyfriend to focus on his work, watching him eat slowly between inserting graphics and looking over research material. You caught him mouthing plans for his presentation to himself when he forgot you were there. 

Once he’d finally finished his food, you took the plate from the desk and brought the dishes to the kitchen, washing the salsa and bits of egg from them. You frowned at the soapy water when you realized the set of two plates would be your last to wash together since Seto would be leaving in little less than two hours. 

‘Living’ with the man for the past three days had spoiled you, and now that he was leaving, you felt a sad pang bubbling in your chest. You squeezed the soapy sponge in your hand absently, watching the suds spill over your hand, through your fingers, and into the sink. You ran the hot water over your hands and shook your head, willing the self-pitying thoughts out of your mind before drying your hands off and returning to the bedroom. 

You listened to Seto speaking softly in English, debating what words to use in his future presentation, before he turned to see you had returned to the bed. He frowned at your sudden presence, looking less embarrassed and more annoyed that you had heard his mini-rehearsal. You felt a little bad for breaking his concentration, but shrugged him off and reached over to the bedside table to snatch up your phone. 

“Don’t mind me,” you assured, noticing a text from the younger Kaiba. 

_Did you send that text from Nii-sama?_

__

__

_Iunno, did I? （￣へ￣）_

You grinned a self-satisfied grin, and entertained yourself with general internet tomfoolery while Seto worked, dangling your bare feet off the side of the bed and occasionally stealing glances at his concentrated face. His eyes sparkled in the sunlight shining over his laptop screen, his hair still a mess. You stared at him more than you had meant to, and before you knew it, he was finished with his presentation and notes, and there was a knock at your door. 

“Suppose that’s the locksmith.” Seto said coolly, looking at you and prompting you to get up from the bed begrudgingly to answer the door. You headed out to the hallway, then to your front door, opening it to reveal a frail old man with a heavy toolbox and a long, whiskery beard. 

“You need a lock fixed?” He asked slowly. 

“Uh,” you looked down at the obviously smashed padlock on your door, then back to him, trying not to sound belittling, “Yeah. That one.”

“Okie dokie miss,” he nodded, setting his toolbox down against the door and shooing you away, “I’ll have it replaced in a jiffy.” 

“Thanks,” you murmured, standing in the doorway for a second, unsure if you were supposed to stay and watch, before turning and heading back to the bedroom. Seto was already on the floor, leaning against his knees and packing his toiletries and expensive towels into his suitcases, his hair bouncing against his face. You knelt down next to him and leaned your head against his shoulder, unwilling to let him leave so soon despite knowing you had inconvenienced him for the past three days. 

“I’ll be back in five days.” He assured you, voice balanced between comforting and vocally rolling his eyes. 

“I know.”

“I’ll have my phone on me.” 

“I know.” You repeated, feeling a little embarrassed that your boyfriend felt the need to treat you like you were a child. You wondered when the last time he’d talked to Mokuba like this was. Very quickly, Seto was finished packing, nudging you off his shoulder and standing up off the ground. Isono was in your room shortly after, offering you a polite smile and taking the suitcases out of your room. 

“I love you.” You murmured absently as the two of you left your bedroom, Seto hoisting his laptop bag over his shoulder. You made sure you were close enough for your arms to touch as he leaned down in the entryway to slip on his expensive leather shoes, glancing between him and the old man who was making quick work of the replacement padlock. Seto tapped the toe of his shoe on the floor to make sure his shoe was on properly before straightening himself to his full height, turning to tower over your short frame. He looked you over slowly, placed a hand on your shoulder, and nodded.

“I know.” He replied, voice a mix between smug and teasing. Despite his haughty tone, he gave your shoulder a soft squeeze before turning on his heels and exiting your apartment, leaving you standing awkwardly next to the locksmith.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may have noticed I have a final number of chapters for this fic, at 25. Which means we're nearing the end of Pardon my French! Now now before you sharpen your pitchforks, rest assured, I plan to continue this story with a second fic as part of a series! Once the semester end on the 7th I'll have way more time to focus on writing, which means you'll be getting even more of this saga from me. ;)
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy this chapter! I know it's mostly just fluff and sarcasm, but I mean, that's kind of every chapter at this point! Please forgive any weird typos, and point them out so I can fix them. It's very late and I'm so out of it, the fashion show is in less than two weeks and I want to die. Let me know what you guys thought of this one, your kudos and reviews feed my creativity~


	24. Cherry Liqueur

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which you attempt to entertain yourself in your boyfriend's absence. And text him an obnoxious amount of Japanese emojis.

You texted Seto a little while he was on his way to Melbourne, only to wish him luck at the conference and ask him when his presentation was. Had you had your way, you would have been happy spending his entire flight talking to him, but he had to work and practice his speech, so you were left to fend for your own entertainment. With no gaming computer and no television, you settled on ordering Chinese food, curling up under your blankets, and watching Netflix. For the entire day.

Needless to say, it felt like your vacation had finally begun, since you got absolutely nothing accomplished. You didn’t even put on makeup, and only put your robe on to pay for the takeout that had been delivered to your apartment. You ended up falling asleep in the middle of the finale to The Great British Baking Show.

The next day was equally uneventful, though you at least managed to get some work done. You sketched out a few fashion ideas you had for a line you wanted to start on next semester whilst re-watching episodes of The Office. You actually completely forgot to text Seto and ask how his first presentation had gone until you were searching the cupboards for something to eat. When you did finally text him, it took him nearly three hours to reply.

 _It was fine._ His response finally popped up on your screen while you were shaving your legs in a bath filled to the brim with bubbles. You stretched your arm over to the towel on the shelf and dried off one of your hands, picking up the phone and being careful not to drop it into the waters below. 

_Just fine? I’d expect more reassurance from such a skilled speaker~_

_Are you flirting or antagonizing me?_

_Both ੧| ‾́ェ ‾́ |੭_

It took him a bit to respond to you again, so you finished shaving one of your legs and rubbed the redness away under the water. Finally, your text tone again filled the air, quiet other than the sound of water sloshing in the tub. 

_Why are you like this?_

_Loveable and adorable? Just lucky I guess. Anyway, is the conference any fun?_

_I’ve spent the past two hours talking to indie developers who have no idea what they’re doing. It’s as if they went into this industry with no prior knowledge, only an idea, and thought that would be enough to make a game._

You giggled at Seto'so mini-rant, as the image of him surrounded by developers pleading for his programming and marketing wisdom popped into your mind. You wondered if he was like a kind of celebrity at events like that, considering his age and how successful his company was.

_Aw! Be their game dev senpai! (♡´౪`♡)_

_Absolutely not. Where are you coming up with these faces?_

_They’re way more fun that just regular emojis! And no one else really texts me… (｡-人-｡) So I have no choice but to use them on you._

_In that case I’m done texting you. I have work to do before bed._

_Don’t stay up too late! Make sure to eat! Sleep well ～(^з^)/♡_

Admittedly, you were totally using extra emojis because you knew he hated them. But he just made it so easy to annoy him, you couldn’t resist! You finished shaving your other leg and soaked in the tub for a while before finally rinsing off in the shower and turning in for the night.

 

By the third day of Seto’s absence, you were starting to get lonely. It wasn't like it was the first time you'd spent multiple days not speaking to the man, but that was before the two of you were dating, and now that you had spent a few days with him living in your apartment, you were longing to see him again. Not to mention, before this all you could always look forward to seeing him in class. 

Speaking of class, you wondered if the two of you were still taking Applied Differential Equations together next semester. You knew he had signed up for it with you, but after you had yelled at him last week and he spent the following days doing everything in his power to cut you out of his life, it wouldn’t have surprised you if he dropped that class for something else.

By the time four rolled around, you were beginning to get depressed by the thought that you might not be in classes with your boyfriend next semester, but you didn’t want to bother him with such a silly concern while he was at a conference. Especially since he was hosting two different panels today. Instead, you decided to break out some fancy cherry liqueur you kept in the very back of your alcohol shelf and start a group call with some of your closest friends. Maybe they would be able to distract you from your loneliness and self-pity until it was a reasonable hour to go to bed. 

Thankfully since it was a weekend, everyone was still online despite the late hours in the States. And since break had begun for them as well, you could probably convince them to stay up all night since they hadn’t voice chatted with you in a solid two months. Waking up early for school just made it difficult to play with friends who were about sixteen hours behind you.

You were delighted to find that Kevin was already drunk by the time you joined, which meant you could start drinking and not be the only obnoxious person in the call. Jeremy and Vincent were finishing up a game of Mario Baseball, god knows why whey liked that game so much. You watched the two of them on the screen share feature and began drinking, trying not to look at your phone and tempt yourself to text Seto, knowing his panels were already over for the day. Thankfully, your dear friends were excellent distractors, especially with how bad they were at video games.

By the time Jeremy and Vincent were fed up with Mario Baseball, Kevin was in the midst of describing his co-worker’s sex life, which you probably would have found really weird had you not been so drunk. As it stood, the sickeningly sweet cherry alcohol in your system was making basically everything hilarious, especially when it was coming from your friends. Jeremy was laughing about as much as you were, though you couldn’t tell if that was due to any alcohol he was having or just because he thought Kevin was an idiot.

“Let’s play Uno,” Kevin suggested.

“Of all the games, Uno?” Vincent asked.

“Well it is kind of a tradition. But we have to actually play this time instead of drawing dicks all over the table.” You said.

The four of you started up a Steam lobby and brought up the Uno deck. You attempted to deal cards to everyone but forgot how the game worked and accidentally dealt the whole deck. This happened two more times before Vincent decided you were too drunk to be trusted with anything and he dealt the cards himself. Thank god you had such a wonderful, straight-edge friend to deal with your stupidity. 

“Oh, so you said you have a boyfriend now?” Kevin asked as he took his turn. 

“Uh, yeah.”

“What’s he like? He a cool guy?”

“He’s really tall,” you said, placing down a reverse card.

“Okaaaaaay, but what’s he like?” Kevin asked impatiently. 

“He’s really smart, and he likes games. And he’s kinda intense, I dunno?” You offered, not exactly sure how else to describe your boyfriend.

“You should invite him to play something with us,” Jeremy said.

“Oh god no. He can barely handle me, I think all four of us would drive him crazy.” You chuckled into your glass. 

“You talk about him like you don’t like him,” Vincent said, skipping your turn. 

“That’s not true," you laughed again, "Plus I feel like he’d probably describe me with some mean things too."

“No way! No guy described his girlfriend with mean stuff,” Kevin dismissed. 

“I don’t think you know Seto very well then.” 

“I’m serious. I bet you anything he’d say nice shit about you.” 

Oh, the word bet was probably one of your favorites. Especially when it was a bet you were confident you would win. You knew Seto better than Kevin did, way better, and you knew what he thought about you. Yeah, you knew he thought good things about you, he had said them the first night he stayed at your apartment, but he was quicker to call you things like insufferable or simple or obnoxious. There were so many words he could use to describe your less desirable features, you were sure of it.

“Twenty bucks he says mostly mean things,” you said. 

“You’re on!” Kevin said as he was hit with a draw two card, “Tell him to text you five words to describe you and if they’re mostly positive I’m making an easy twenty bucks.” 

“Fine,” you said haughtily. There was no way Seto would say mostly nice things about you, especially if you were bothering him this late at night. 

_Quick! Crisis!_ You texted and sent to him. 

_What?_

_I need you to list off five words you’d use to describe me!_

It took him ages to respond to you, which was a real problem because you told him explicitly it was a crisis. A crisis! He was supposed to respond quickly in a crisis, not take his sweet ass time and make you wait.

_Why?_

You groaned and took another sip of your drink, feeling the warmth all the way down your throat while you tried not to imagine straight up murdering your boyfriend.

_Seto this is important! I have 20 bucks on the line!_

_Your problems are so mundane._

He was useless!

“If he won’t respond to me who gets the twenty bucks?” You groaned, taking your turn in Uno.

“Me, because he didn’t say bad things about you.” Kevin said.

“What? But he didn’t say anything at all!”

“Yeah, but he didn’t say anything bad.” Jeremy agreed.

“You guys are the worst.” You grumbled as you were forced to draw four cards and skip your turn. 

_You’re gonna make me lose 20 bucks why are you the literal worst?_

_How is this my problem? What is this bet about, anyway?_

_Depending on what five words you use, I either win or lose 20 bucks._

_If settle your idiotic bet will you let me get back to work?_

_Yes, hurry up! (｡□ﾟﾉ)ﾉ_

You could practically hear Seto sighing on the other side of the phone, but you couldn’t possibly care less. If he wanted to work so bad he should have just answered you the first time. You managed to get through two more turns in Uno before a message finally popped up on your screen. 

“Romantic.” You said sourly. 

“Ooh, that’s a positive. So far I’m winning.” Kevin said. 

“I’m pretty sure he doesn’t mean that as a positive,” you said, taking a sip of your drink. 

“I’m gonna call that a positive,” Vincent chimed in, hitting you with a skip.

“Same,” Jeremy antagonized. 

“I fucking hate you guys.” You grumbled. 

You tapped your finger on the side of your half-empty glass and watched the screen of your phone, waiting for another message from Seto. What on earth was taking the man so long to answer a simple question? Maybe the alcohol was just making you impatient, well more impatient than usual, but it was taking a long time! 

“Short. Okay that one’s definitely a negative!” You said triumphantly.

“I’ll give ya that.” Kevin said. 

“Uno,” Vincent said as another text message popped up on your phone. 

_Endearing._

“Who the fuck says endearing anymore? This is the twenty-first century!” You groaned and played a draw two. Though you probably should have been flattered that Seto was saying some (kind of) nice things about you, now was neither the time nor the place. You had a bet to win, and did not appreciate his out-of-character niceties right now. 

“If the next two aren’t negative, I’m twenty bucks richer.” Kevin whooped. 

_Snarky._

Was snarky a positive or a negative? You frowned down at your phone and tried to decide whether to ask your friends, but figured they would probably find a way to spin it as a positive. Maybe if his last word was an obvious negative, you could say them both at the same time confidently and make a quick twenty dollars. 

“Uno.” Jeremy said.

How were Jeremy and Vincent already down to their last card when you had four left?

_Intelligent._

“Looks like I win, boys.” Vincent said.

“Intelligent? Fucking hell,” you grumbled. 

“Looks like I do too,” Kevin laughed. 

You downed the last of your drink to make the transfer of twenty US dollars a little easier on yourself, grumbling the entire time about how your boyfriend was the absolute worst. You refrained from sending him an annoyed text back and instead resolved to crush your friends in a less luck-based game. Maybe your supposed ‘snarkiness’ would serve you well in a game of Quiplash. 

_Well?_

_Well what?_

_Did you win?_

_No. And I blame you! (; ･`д･´)_

_Stop with the emjois. What was the bet?_

_I bet that you would say mean things to describe me. But nooooo you just had to choose today to be nice!_

There was a long, long pause before Seto’s next message. You had time to (reluctantly) transfer twenty bucks to Kevin via PayPal, and you and your friends got through two entire rounds of Quiplash before his next message popped up on the screen. 

_I’ve said nice things about you before._

Obviously, you could not tell what tone his text was supposed to take since you could not hear his voice. But something about the way it took him so long to send his message to you made you think he was offended that you assumed he wouldn’t say anything nice about you. You wondered if that was actually the case, or you were just reading into things too much, especially with how much alcohol was in your system.

_Yeah but you say mean things more often ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯_

_I said stop. I have to get ready for a party, do not bother me again._

Immediately you felt bad for annoying him right before a party, which you knew he hated, and assuming he would be mean to you, but you were still pretty sour that he had made you lose such an easy bet. You should have been twenty dollars richer right now. You tossed your phone to the foot of the bed and huffed, returning your attention back to the Quiplash game, before realizing you actually needed your phone in order to finish playing the game. You tried really hard not to pour yourself another glass of alcohol in your frustration before reaching over your bed to grab your phone again. 

You stayed up playing with your friends until nearly ten your time, when they all insisted it was time for bed because the sun was shining through their windows. You concede their point, forcing yourself to say goodbye to your friends and head to sleep. You didn’t even have the energy to leave your bed to brush your teeth, falling asleep the second you closed your laptop screen. 

At seven in the morning, when Seto was supposed to be boarding his jet to head back to Domino, you awoke to the sound of your text tone. You had forgotten to both mute it and plug it into the charger in your drunken stupor last night. The sun was already beginning to shine through your blinds, much to your slight hangover’s dismay, and you retreated with your phone under the covers. 

_Do you actually think I only think badly of you?_

You yawned into your palm and blinked slowly, trying to clear the sleepy fog from your mind as you processed his message. It was much too early to be having a serious discussion like this, especially over text, and especially while you were hungover. You should probably lay off drinking for a while, before you became an alcoholic. 

_No._ You replied, unable to will your fingers to type anything more committal.

_We’re going out tomorrow. I’ll be at your apartment at 6 AM. Pack a bag. Do not make me wait._

“Great,” you muttered to yourself, shutting your phone’s screen off and tossing it to the side before burying your face into your pillow and deciding to think about the potentials of tomorrow’s trip when you weren’t so tired.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 3 days to the fashion show   
> 3 days to the fashion show  
> 3 days to the fashion show
> 
>  
> 
> Please kill me


	25. Among the Stars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Celebrating the end of the first story with a nice, long chapter. Sit back and enjoy!

You found yourself in the limo bright and early, just as the sun was rising. You stared out the window as the highway signs flew by you on your way to the airport, your overnight bag leaning against your left foot. Seto was sitting next to you on his phone, he had barely addressed you when you got into his limo and was now laser-focused on work. After insisting you get up at the crack-of-ass dawn without telling you where you were going, you wished he would at least pay attention to you. Even a simple good morning would have been nice. 

Ugh, your boyfriend was insufferable, to take a word from his book. 

The limo ride was silent and boring, you had gotten tired of watching the highway and had ended up falling asleep. When Seto shook you awake after who knew how long, your neck was killing you from sleeping funny against the headrest, and you regretted not going to bed much earlier the previous night. You blinked up at him, then out the window, to see an airstrip stretched in front of you. 

“Where are we?”

“My airport,” he replied dismissively, “Come on.”

“Your airport? You own an airport?”

“Yes.” The two of you got out of his limo and he lead you across the tarmac toward a small private jet with the KC logo.

“Why?”

“For my airplanes, obviously.” He huffed. 

“Right, silly me. I, too, have my own airport for my airplanes, just like any normal human being. Using someone else’s airport is for poor people.”

“Just shut up and get on the plane.” He groaned, gently pushing you in front of him and forcing you up the stairs to the jet.

The interior if the plane was pure hospital white from the walls to the floor to the rows of seats on one side and the small couch on the other. It felt very clean and simple, but made you a little uneasy. You really wished Seto would invest his massive amount of money in a good interior designer, because the whole white thing was getting to be a little much. 

The two of you sat on the couch that was bolted to the floor rather than any of the airplane seats and Seto immediately pulled his laptop out of his bag and started working. You had not brought anything with you other than a change of clothes, makeup, and toiletries, so you pulled out your phone and started scrolling through Instagram. 

Shortly after getting comfortable on the empty plane, your pilot announced your ascent and that it would be 40 minutes before you arrived in Miyakejima. You had to look at a map of Japan for a few minutes before you found the small volcanic island a little off the coast of Tokyo. Apparently everyone in Miyakejima, the island’s biggest city that shared the volcano’s name, owned a gas mask in case of eruption, to keep from breathing in toxic sulfur dioxide from the volcano. You saw a few really eery black and white photos of a city of gas masks underneath clouds of toxic fog before deciding you were done with the Silent Hill shit and put your phone away.

“Why are we going to Miyakejima?” You asked, scooting closer to Seto on the couch to look at what he was working on. 

“It’s the closest airport to our final destination. We won’t be staying long.” He replied vaguely. 

You hummed and leaned your head back against the couch cushions, stretching your legs out in front of you and sighing. You did not like not knowing where you were going, especially because knowing Kaiba it could be literally anywhere. Surprise were nice and all, but you were starting to get kind of anxious. 

The flight was over quickly and the two of you disembarked the plane through the airport entrance rather than on the tarmac. Seto lead you through the small airport briskly, his trench coat billowing behind his long strides. People moved out of his way like he was a bulldozer about to cut them down if they kept in his path, the way his tall frame towered over them and his narrowed blue eyes darted over everyone was intimidating to say the least. You were thankful you were the one clutching his large hand.

“What?” He grumbled.

“What?”

“You’re grinning at me like an idiot.”

“Oh,” were you? You hadn’t even noticed, you had just been thinking about him. “It’s probably just because I love you.” 

He shook his head and huffed, leading you out of the airport and to a black limousine that was smaller than his usual one in Domino. The two of you got comfortable in the back, you still holding his hand out of instinct, which meant he could not take out his laptop to work. You were a little surprised he hadn’t wrestled it away yet, but then discovered it was because the limo ride wasn’t any longer than ten minutes. 

The two of you got out in a huge grassy airfield, surrounded by various models of KC helicopters, some looking much older than others. You shivered against the cool, salty wind blowing in from the nearby ocean, rubbing your hands together for warmth and regretting not wearing a heavier coat. Even Seto was wearing a warmer trench coat than normal, white fitted sleeves to his wrists and lined with a deep blue velvety looking fabric. The limousine drove off and Seto tugged you over to one of the smaller helicopters, already manned by a young woman with long black hair and an excited grin. 

“Mornin’ Mister Kaiba!” 

He grunted in acknowledgement and climbed aboard the helicopter. You smiled up at her and follow suit, sitting in one of the two seats behind the cockpit. 

“You must be Mister Kaiba’s girlfriend,” the woman said cheerily. It wasn’t often you were addressed directly by one of Seto’s employees, but it was kind of nice. “I’m Rin, it’s a pleasure!”

You introduced yourself and reached out to shake her extended hand before she turned to her controls and started the helicopter up. The whirring of the blades above were loud, but clearly not loud enough to break the concentration of Seto, who was already back to reading emails. 

“So, this your first time visiting the facility?” Rin shouted.

“Uh, I don’t even know where we’re going.” You admitted. 

Rin belted out a hearty laugh, “Well I won’t ruin the surprise then.”

You leaned over toward Seto to see what he was doing in an attempt to distract yourself from the wind whipping at your skin through the open door of the helicopter. He was just about finished reading through a very dull-looking sales report, and you decided it was much too early for something so mind-numbingly boring. Once he had finished, he slipped his phone into his jacket pocket and glanced over at you. 

“Cold?” 

You nodded.

“You should have brought a warmer coat,” he scoffed. 

You rolled your eyes and chose to ignore his comment. 

Shortly afterwards, the helicopter landed and you and Seto unfastened yourselves from the seats and stepped out. The smell of the ocean filled your nostrils, a cold salty breeze blew your hair back and nipped at your face. You waved goodbye to Rin as she took off, then turned to face the tallest tower you’d ever seen in your life. You had been watching Seto the entire chopper ride, but you wished you’d been looking out the window instead because this thing was massive. 

“It’s huge,” you remarked, eyes wide as you craned your neck to look at the giant pillar of metal and flashing lights that towered above you. It seemed to stretch on endlessly, so far up that you couldn’t see the top. Seto stood next to you, arms crossed over his chest as he watched you stare up with childlike wonder. 

“Would you like to go inside?”

You nodded. The two of you entered the building in front of the tower that was equally impressive and high-tech. The smell of the ocean disappeared from your nose, instead replaced by cool metal and electronics. Before you stretched a long bridge that lead toward what you assumed was the entrance to the sky-high tower. Below on either side stood row upon row of consoles with flashing lights and holograms, each manned by suspiciously android-like women. It was both amazing and a little unsettling that Seto would have an entire facility run by women who all looked eerily similar, with the same pixie cut hairstyle and wide frame glasses. You briefly wondered if they were his ideal woman, before shaking the idea from your mind and returning your attention to the majesty of the space you had found yourself in.

Seto had already begun to walk over the bridge toward the metal tower, and you quickly chased after him, still darting your eyes around your surroundings in amazement. For the CEO of a gaming corporation, the man sure had a lot of projects that had nothing to do with gaming. He arrived in front of the giant metal door that donned the KC logo and marked the entrance to the tower, then punched in a keycode and scanned his fingerprint before the door opened. 

“Welcome back, Mister Kaiba.” An unsettling mechanical voice echoed through the room. The metal door opened up for the two of you, revealing a single, comfortable looking chair. You cocked your head to the side a little and grinned. 

“You know, there are easier ways to get a nice chair.” 

He shook his head and sat himself down in the chair, piercing blue eyes flicker up to meet your face. You continued to stand where you were, admittedly unsure what you were supposed to do. Seto had not explained anything about this facility prior to deciding the two of you were going to pay it a visit, so you waited for him to explain what was going on. You adjusted the bag you’d thrown over your shoulder and raised an eyebrow to him. 

“Come here.” 

You swallowed hard and sauntered your way over to him, standing just in front of him in his chair. It was just high enough off the ground that you were at eye level with him, so you locked eyes and waited for him to tell you what was going on. Before he explained anything though, he merely sighed in frustration and put a hand around your wrist, yanking you onto his lap. Your eyes widened as you were pulled onto him, your shoulder falling against his warm chest. You propped your knees up, tucked your feet into the space left between his legs, and stared up at him. His face was so close to yours that your noses were almost touching. 

You heard the sound of the metal door closing behind you, then what sounded like the airlock you’d heard in movies. You whipped your head around as the lights in the small pod you now found yourself in shut off simultaneously, leaving you in momentary blackness. A breath caught in your throat, and though you were not afraid of the dark, the fact that you had no idea what was going on was making the hairs on your arms stand up. 

You clutched at the front of your boyfriend’s shirt involuntarily before warm sunlight began to fill the pod from above. You darted your head up to see what looked like metal sheets on the surface of the tall tower collapsing, revealing the outside world to the windows underneath them. The tower above you stretched up for miles, somewhat Tower of Terror-esque, and in an instant the situation clicked in your head. This was either going to be the most thrilling ride of your life, or the most terrifying and PTSD-inducing experience ever imaginable. Potentially both. 

“Hold on tight,” Seto’s husky voice breathed in your ear, a clear teasing on its edge. 

You tighten your grip on him, one of your hands still clutching at his shirt, the other moving to grasp his hand that had been holding onto your wrist. The sound of an engine began to fill the space you two shared, and you could feel your heart rate picking up. You looked back at his face, his features completely stoic, but what you could only describe as excitement danced in his eyes. 

Then there was an intense pressure on your head and body, the feeling of gravity pushing down on you so hard that for a moment you thought you might just drop dead right there. Your ears popped, the way they did when you started ascending in an airplane, but faster and harder. The chair the two of you sat in was being shot upward with such great force that you were dumbstruck, forced to look down and bury your head in Seto’s chest. Your heart was beating so fast from the speed and excitement, but your head was killing you and you weren’t quite sure which to focus on. You had been able to keep yourself from crying out in surprise but now you thought maybe you should, to relieve some of this pressure. 

“It’ll slow down,” Seto’s voice assured you, speaking into the back of your head. He sounded perfectly fine, which made you wonder exactly how many times he’d gone up in this damn chair to be used to such a terrifying feeling. You managed to nod against him, and steadied your breathing as you felt some of the pressure dissipate. You couldn’t tell if you were just adapting to the feeling or it was actually getting better. 

After a moment, you could feel the speed of the chair slowing gradually, and eventually the massive pressure of gravity barreling down on you lessened to the point that you could finally feel your own body again. You picked your head off Seto’s chest and looked up at him, eyes still wide as you searched him. 

“That was awful, why would you do that to me?”

“Oh please, quit with the dramatics. It wasn’t that bad.” He rolled his eyes and used the hand you weren’t clutching for dear life to point beside you. Your eyes followed it toward the massive tower of windows that surrounded the two of you, revealing the clouds above Japan. 

“Woah,” you mumbled, letting go of his shirt and hand and shifting yourself around in the chair to push yourself up. You leaned over so you were almost touching the glass of the pod that stood between you and the giant tower, gazing down at the clouds and ocean below you. You had to be tens of thousands of feet in the air. The few, thin clouds that remained around you quickly flew by with how quickly you were moving. You half-expected to be greeted by some mythical city in the sky, like Bhujerba or Columbia or Dalaran. 

“How far up does this thing go?” You asked, unable to tear your eyes away from the wondrous blue that stretched before you. You were climbing upward so fast, but you could no longer feel anything but awe.

“You’ll see.” He said dismissively.

“How much money did this thing cost anyway?” You mused, “Like, how rich are you?”

“Very.” 

You glanced over to him enough to see his eyes were set on you rather than the sky around you. He didn’t seem at all interested in the scenery, only in your reaction. 

“Do you come up here a lot?” You asked. You were so high at this point that you couldn’t see anything below you clearly, mainly the white blur of the clouds and blue of the sky, but you could make out the entirety of Japan and its islands, along with a good portion of the main Asian continent moving further and further away. 

“Not as much as I used to, why?”

“You just don’t seem as excited about how pretty it is,” you mumbled. 

The two of you were quiet until you traveled upward so high that it was starting to get cold inside of the glass pod. You moved over a little so your arm was resting against Seto’s warm chest and continued to stare out to the continents below and the sky surrounding you. Then something magical happened. It was as if you blinked and suddenly you were no longer staring at just the blue sky, you were staring over it. Over the Earth.

“We’re in space?!” You shouted, slamming your hands against the glass and leaning so close your nose touched it. The globe stretched out over you, blue and green underneath a white horizon light. The blackness of space around you lit up with tiny stars way in the distance, sparkling and dancing with warm glows. Over the horizon, you could see the moon peeking out over the world, grey and rocky and lit by the sun’s rays. 

You were pretty sure you were dreaming. You wanted to turn back to Seto and ask him to slap you to confirm you were really awake, but you could not tear your eyes from the majesty that spanned your vision. The blackness of space, the white speckles of stars, the colors that danced from the earth below you, it was all so beautiful and amazing you forgot to breathe. 

Just as quickly as it began, your ascent slowed to a stop, and you were again surrounded by closed metal doors and blackness. You felt the chair spinning around before it faced the now-opening door, revealing a large metal room and a long walkway. Seto had to push you off his lap so you’d move off of him, before leading you out of the little pod and onto the walkway. 

“I see you enjoyed the Space Elevator.” Seto quipped as the walkway buzzed to life and began to move the two of you forward, like the ones you’d see in airports. Was His Highness really too good to walk through his space station that he had a moving floor installed? 

“Seto for what possible reason did you build yourself a space station? This seems like a colossal waste of money.” You walked forward a little so you were standing next to him on the walkway, inching toward a set of large metal double-doors. Your surroundings were pretty dim, lit only by the stars shining through the windows and some faint blue lights along the edges of the walkway.

“It’s a long story,” he said dismissively.

“Well we’re alone in the cold vacuum of space for I’m going to guess the rest of the day, so I’ve got time.”

“I built it to reconstruct an ancient Egyptian artifact in a zero-gravity environment.” 

“Are you… are you fucking with me?” Seto did not sound like he was at all joking, but his story was both very short and a little insane. A lot insane actually.

“No, I’m serious.” 

“Oh. Uh, why didn’t you just build a zero-gravity chamber? You know, on Earth.”

The two of you finally reached the doors and they opened automatically for you, revealing a much brighter room. The light flooded in through the open door so you could clearly see Seto’s face, a glare painted on from your remark. Well, admittedly you had just told him his expensive space station was a complete waste after he went through the trouble of bringing you up here, but you weren’t wrong.

You turned your attention to the room in front of you. The walkway had shut off and ended at the doorway, so you had to actually use your legs again. What a terrible inconvenience. You were about to step into the room, one foot hovering over the doorway, and looked down, then about screamed when you discovered you nearly stepped on seemingly nothing. Below you stretched the Earth, pure greens and blues in a patchwork surrounded by the vast blackness of space.

Seto walked past you into the room, not even paying you a glance, and you realized the floor was entirely glass. You placed your foot down gingerly, then sighed with relief when you did not fall through the floor and to your oxygen-depleted death. Once you knew you weren’t going to die, excitement washed over you, and your eyes darted around the room that was entirely glass. The universe stretched before you, around you, surrounding your everything. You ran into the middle of the room and just stared, eyes the size of saucers.

“Remember when I said this was a colossal waste of money?”

“That was less than two minutes ago.”

“Well, I approve of this waste of money. This is amazing.” 

“As if I needed your stamp of approval,” he scoffed. He had slipped the newest model of his Duel Disk on his arm and was watching you wander around the room with your eyes sparkling like a kid. He rolled his eyes and activated the Duel Disk, but you were too busy staring outward to notice his flashy pose, or his annoyed glare when you were not paying attention to him. After waiting for you to snap out of your stupor for twenty seconds longer than he felt he should, he barked out your name. 

“Hm? Sorry, were you talking to me?” You still did not turn to look at him. 

“Come here.” He ordered, forcing you to tear your eyes from the stars and turn around, walking over to him with the same sparkling eyes you’d directed to them. The sparkle quickly faded when you noticed the blue glow of the Duel Disk on his arm, replaced with a quirked eyebrow. Seto reached into the briefcase he had brought up with him and pulled out a similar looking Disk before handing it to you.

“What’s this?”

“A prototype of the newest model of my Duel Disks,” he replied, “Put it on.” 

You slipped it on your arm, then put on what looked like a tiny version of the Souzou, his VR glasses, when he handed them to you. You glanced town to the Disk on your arm and instantly it lit up, glowing a bright bubblegum pink. You turned your arm around in front of your face and whistled at the sleek, expensive design. 

“It’s pretty. And my favorite color.” 

“Of course it is, with the Souzouryoku on your mind controls everything about it. The only limits in this space are those you place on yourself.” The way Seto was talking sounded like a weird combination of a motivational speaker and someone running for public office.

“So this thing reads my mind and makes shit appear?” You asked.

“Yes.”

“I want ice cream,” you chirped, narrowing your eyebrows and willing ice cream to appear before you. Lo and behold, a cone of your favorite ice cream spun in front of you, and as you reached out to touch it, your fingers slipped through it and it disappeared. You pouted at the lack of tangible ice cream, disappointed to find that it had only been a hologram.

“Are you an idiot?”

“Look, you hyped this thing up a lot. I imagined actual ice cream, it’s not my fault I’m limited by holograms.”

Seto sighed and brought his fingers up to pinch the bridge of his nose. You were enjoying messing with him, perhaps even more so because he was taking your attention away from the vast nothingness of space you just wanted to stare into for eternity. 

“You’re going to help me test out the new Disk before it’s released.” He said, aggravation on his voice.

“You sound like you’re ordering me around,” you hummed, “Try again.”

Seto clicked his tongue at you and for a moment you half expected him to kick you out of his fancy space station and tell you to find your own way home. His eyes were closed and his brow was knit, fingers still on the bridge of his nose. 

“Will you help me test the new Duel Disk?” He finally managed, and the request sounded alien coming from his lips. You weren’t quite sure you liked it, maybe you should just let his orders slide so he didn’t sound so… weird. 

“Of course I will. How do I do that?” 

“By dueling, obviously.” 

“Wait you want me to duel you?”

“Would you stop asking stupid questions? You’re wasting my time.” Well at least he was back to being Seto.

“I just-- you know I’ve only ever dueled like once right? Back when Mokuba taught me at Kaiba Land?”

“And?”

“You’re gonna wipe the floor with me.”

A smirk danced on his lips, “I’d do that regardless of how many times you’ve played.”

Oh, so that was how it was going to be? Cocky bastard thought you’d go down that easy? Well, you probably would, but you certainly wouldn’t hand him a win! You were going to at least try to put up a fight! 

Actually, first you’d have to remember how to play this damn game. The two of you stepped back to leave some space between you, and you stared between him and the Disk on your arm, trying to figure out how to put cards into the thing. It was thin and lightweight and felt almost like you were wearing nothing, so you were lost on how to use it for a card game, especialle when Seto had not provided you any. 

“What?” He grumbled. 

“I don’t have any cards,” you frowned.

“You don’t need cards, you just need to imagine a deck and it will program itself into your Disk.” 

“Oh,” you nodded, but though his words might make sense to an actual duelist, you had no idea what cards you were even supposed to imagine in a deck. You didn’t know what any cards did, aside from some of the ones you played with in the Harpie deck way back when. In that instance, before you appeared a scrolling list of cards, with art and descriptions. Your eyes widened at the massive amount of choices that stretched in front of you, and immediately you felt overwhelmed. 

The worst part was that Seto had his arms crossed and foot tapping like he was just dying to get this duel over with and kick your ass. Impatience was painted all over his face, and though you really wanted to oblige him and just start the duel, you did not know what any of these cards did. You wished you could just use a premade deck like the one you’d used in Kaiba Land. 

Just like that, all the cards disappeared from your vision, and were replaced with a single line of text: Deck complete.

“Uh-oh what did I do?” 

“Looks like you completed a deck if the plain English in front of your face is any indication.” 

“I can read, Seto,” you huffed, “But I didn’t even pick any cards.”

“You probably thought of an existing deck and the Disk is using that.”

“How does it know what cards to put in?” 

“It’s hooked up to the Kaiba Corporation cloud mainframe, it has access to all the decks on file for any given duelist. Now, are you ready or not?” 

“Uh… yeah, sure,” you nodded. You weren’t even sure what deck you were about to use to duel against your boyfriend, but with the skill gap between you, it probably didn’t even matter. You looked over his tall frame, noticing that while his Duel Disk was a similar shape to yours, it was obviously more expensive and high-tech. A bright blue light traveled up the length of his arm and underneath the padded shoulder of his trench coat. When had he put all that crap on?

Seto took his turn first, setting a monster along with two face-down cards in a very over-the-top fashion, before ending his turn. You made the same move he had to draw his first card, admittedly you were not as flashy as he was about it. The cards in your “hand” flashed before you, along with detailed explanations of what they did and how to use them effectively. You were delighted to find that the Suozou had built a Harpie Lady deck for you. Oddly though, you suddenly felt like you had this weird knowledge of how to strategize against Seto, despite never dueling against him before, as if you’d just spent hours studying his previous duels. 

This felt… weird. It kind of felt like you were cheating, but since Seto probably had the same information in front of him, it wasn’t really cheating, was it? Plus, you needed all the help you could get under the circumstances. You touched your fingertips to one of the Harpie Ladies in front of you, along with a Harpie’s Feather Duster to get rid of his trap cards.

“You are aware that card is banned in tournament play, aren’t you?” Seto frowned. 

“Well we’re not in a tournament, are we?” You shrugged him off and ordered your monster to attack his, “Plus it’s not my fault, I didn’t build the deck!” 

“That’s fine,” Seto flipped over his Maiden With Eyes of Blue and negated your attack, before smirking and summoning a Blue Eyes to the field. God, you hated that card. “Even if you rely on banned cards you’re still no match for me.” 

“Woah I didn’t know you liked trash talk so much,” you grinned through your nerves, but you weren’t quite sure what to do in the face of a Blue Eyes so early in the game. You ended your turn and watched Seto use a Dragon Shrine to send his other two Blue Eyes to the graveyard. He then used a Dragon’s Mirror to fuse them with the Blue Eyes on the field, and a bright, shimmering light filled your vision. You had to squint to keep it from blinding you before a Neo Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon appeared behind him. The ground beneath you shook as it roared, and you steadied yourself as best you could before looking to the wild grin that had appeared on Seto’s face. He looked like he was having the time of his life-- and also a little like he was going to enjoy straight up murdering you with his dragon. 

“My Neo Blue Eyes can attack three times in a row,” he said cockily, “You’re finished.” 

“Why is Harpie’s Feather Duster banned but a card that can attack three times in one turn isn’t?” 

“Don’t be a sore loser,” he pointed directly to your Harpie Lady on the field and ordered his dragon to attack. You couldn’t help but grin at the sight of Seto having so much fun, more fun than a grown man playing a children’s card game should have. His Neo Blue Eyes gathered a massive amount of energy in each of its mouths before sending a blast of pure blue straight to your monster. 

When it hit, the blast knocked you backwards, and you had to lean your weight to your heels to keep from falling over. You felt the shock of the blast all over your body, felt wind whipping at your face and stinging your skin. You were surrounded by deep grey smoke, unable to see anything, and it was cold and painful. But in an instant, the wind disappeared and the smoke cleared, revealing his ultimate monster to you again with two blasts of energy still ready to go. 

“I’m surprised you’re still standing after being hit by my most powerful servant in your first duel with these,” he gestured to the Disk on your arm and mused. 

“You think I’m gonna go down that easily? It’s just a little laser beam,” you grinned. 

He ordered a second attack on you, and it hurt a lot more than the first. You wondered if it was because the the energy was aimed directly at you instead of your monster, and you slid backwards on the glass floor below you. You were unable to keep on your feet as pain rippled throughout your body, forced to kneel to the ground on one of your knees to keep from doubling over. You felt like you’d actually been hit despite the fact that your body was perfectly fine. Before the smoke had a chance to clear again this time, Seto’s order to attack echoed for the last time through the room, and a final blast of energy struck your body. You couldn’t even keep yourself on the ground this time, your body flew backwards through the air and for a moment you couldn’t breathe at all. Your back hit the ground and you fell directly on your shoulder blades. 

You groaned and rolled over so you could push yourself off the ground, your fingertips trembling as the pain in your body wore off. You managed to get yourself propped up on one elbow by the time Seto had crossed the room to stand over you. 

“That was pitiful,” he gloated, but he still offered his hand to you. 

“I told you I wouldn’t be a challenge,” you grumbled, taking his hand and letting him pull you off the ground and onto your shaking legs. You steadied yourself by leaning your weight on him for a minute before you were able to stand on your own. “Seriously, that hurt though. Why would anyone want to play a game that hurts you?” 

“If you allow yourself to get hit it should hurt. Dueling isn’t for the weak and timid, it’s about thoroughly crushing your opponent and proving you deserve to be standing above anyone else.” 

Now he really sounded like he was running for public office. Holy crap he was intense when it came to dueling, honestly it was a little unnerving. You weren’t exactly sure what to say to him, so you just nodded like you understood what he was saying and left it at that. 

“Can you stand now?”

“Yeah.” You said, then let go of his hand and popped your shoulders.

“Good. We’re going again.”

“Wait seriously?” You frowned, “Did I do something to make you mad?”

“Please, I’m not that petty. You’re here to test the new Duel Disk, one duel is not enough to do so thoroughly.”

You really wanted to interrupt him and say yes, he was that petty, but considering you were about to be on the receiving end of his dragon deck again, you thought it best not to make him mad. Maybe he’d go a little easier on you next time, because dammit you were already pretty sore from the first duel. 

Seto dueled you four more times, and ‘thoroughly crushed’ you each of those times, before he was finally satisfied. Which was good, because though you were trying your utmost to hide it for the sake of your own pride, you didn’t think you’d be able to stand at all after another duel. By the third duel, your entire body was on fire, pain shot through you each time you moved your hand to draw a card or pick yourself off the ground. And at the end of the fifth duel, Seto had to pick you off the ground and hold you up while you steadied your ragged breathing. During your duels, you had managed to hit him a few times, but he brushed them off like they were nothing. 

“You’re really strong,” you murmured. You didn’t mean for it to come out as a compliment, but it ended up sounding like one. 

“I know.” 

“And, you’re a cocky asshole,” you grinned and whipped your head up to look at his face, but made yourself dizzy and stumbled into him. He tightened his grip on your arms to keep you from falling over and rolled his eyes.

“You can’t say something nice without insulting me afterward?”

“I learned from the best,” you chuckled and balanced yourself on your feet again. “Not that I’m not enjoying getting pummeled by you, but can we take a break? My everything hurts.” 

He nodded and lead you over to the edge of the glass room, helping you sit down in front of the window so you could, again, look out to the universe that stretched in front of you. He slipped the Duel Disk off your arm and placed it back into his briefcase and you took off the Souzou glasses and handed them to him gingerly. Once everything was put back into his case, you stared out to space again, pulling your knees to your chest and resting your chin against them.

“I’m glad you brought me up here,” you said softly. 

“Why?”

“Well, I don’t know many people who get to take a day trip to space first of all.” You turned your attention from the stars to look up as him as he closed the metal briefcase and set it on the ground. “And it was nice to watch you have fun.” 

“Fun?”

“Yeah while we were dueling. You looked like you were having a good time. Though I’m sure you would have had more fun if I had offered more of a challenge,” you laughed. 

“Most likely.” He replied honestly.

You reached up to grab his hand, lightly wrapping your fingertips around his palm, and felt his muscles twitch in surprise. Most of the time he acted like it didn’t phase him, but when he wasn’t expecting the physical contact, his reactions were always fun. He still wasn’t totally used to your spur of the moment displays of affection, as if he were an elementary school kid with his first crush.

“Do you believe that I think badly of you?” He asked suddenly, avoiding your gaze by looking out to the stars. 

“This again?” You raised an eyebrow, “Is this about my drunk texting you a couple nights ago?” 

He responded with a sigh. 

“Relax, Seto. I know you think some good things about me.”

“Some?”

You shrugged, “I don’t know, how many good points do I even have?”

“Your self-esteem issues are making this more difficult.” He groaned. 

“Sorry. But you have to think good things. You wouldn’t be dating me otherwise….”

He said nothing, still doing everything in his power to keep his eyes off you. 

“...Right?” You murmured and squeezed his hand.

He was finally forced to look at you, his sapphire blue eyes hard and icy behind his restrained mess of bangs. His thumb drew absent circles on the back of your hand as he, presumably, thought of how to reply to you. 

“Correct.” 

You couldn’t help but laugh at his short, completely unromantic response, using your free hand to muffle your giggles. He very quickly frowned down at you and attempted to pull his hand from your grasp, but you squeezed harder to keep the contact.

“Sorry, sorry,” you said as you tried to suppress your giggles, “You just have such a way with words.”

“You’re insufferable,” he huffed.

“I love you, too.”

You turned back to the window, gazing down at the world with his warm hand in yours, now that he had stopped trying to pull it from your grasp. Your laughter had stopped, but you still had a grin plastered on your face, as you decided that there wasn’t a place on that globe below you that you’d rather be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope you guys enjoyed this last chapter, it was a ton of fun to write, and I'm so excited to start on the second story in this series. Hopefully you'll all stick around to see what happens next, I've already got some of it written and I know exactly where I want this whole story to end up. Please give me your thoughts on this chapter, and Pardon My French on the whole!
> 
> Oh yeah! My fashion show went well, thank the lord. The day before, I spent 40 hours awake, with 22 of those being straight sewing. But I finished all my garments and they all went on the runway! I had my models pose with Duel Monsters cards and everything. I WENT FULL MEME GUYS. I feel like I need to use this stressful experience in the next story @-@
> 
> Anyway, the next story will be coming soon, right after I finish this semester and I have plenty of time to write! GET HYPED!


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